Two Museums and a Little Distillery

After our full day excursion, today we got a later start and would visit some local museums.  We started with a walk through Franklin Park in downtown Hobart.  Tasmania, and Australia in general, has lots of great city parks.  Wide open spaces, fountains and seating.  We always saw many locals in these parks.

After exiting the park, we headed to the Tasmanian museum.  I didn't know it before we left the hotel. but this had free admission!! 

One of the first exhibits I found was where a local artist was doing pencil drawings of extinct species.  When one was finished, the sketch would be erased and the eraser shavings were left at the bottom.  Then she would start drawing a new extinct creature.  You could see remnants of the past sketch on the paper and the addition of the shavings reinforced the finality of these animals.  Sad and poignant.

The rest of the museum was a collection of local history including art and maritime exhibits. There was also one all about how Australia moved from the shilling monetary system to the Australian dollar. 

One museum was enough for the morning.  We needed to get some lunch!!  I had some reviews and found a local pub with good food and a large beer selection.  Tom McHugo's here we come!!

We tried some smoked sausage that came with pickled fennel.  Such a great idea to pickle the fennel which also was featured in the sausage.  The sausage was nicely smoked with a good toothy bite.

We also got an order of scotch eggs served with a creamy mustard sauce.  Scotch eggs are cooked eggs that are surrounded by sausage and then deep fried.  One problem I tend to find with these is that the eggs are typically overdone.  These eggs were terrific and still had soft boiled yolks.  That tells me they really thought about how to cook the eggs before breading them so the end product wasn't overdone.  They were delicious.  Creamy, salty and tangy with the mustard.  The mustard was also a great dip for  the sausages.

Lastly, we tried chicken parm.  Australians appear to be fascinated with chicken parm as I saw so many place advertising the different types of parms they had.  This one had all the things you would look for in parm.  Crispy breading, broiled cheese on top and a tomatoey sauce.    It was served with chips which seems untraditional, but for Australia it is authentic.  Chips seem to come with most things.

This place had many special beers including Strawberry Fields Forever from Hobart Brewing,  This was a delightful beer, relatively low alcohol at 4.7%.  It almost tasted like a wine.  While we were here, I also tried the Sour Pumpkin Ale from Two Metres Tall and Smokin' Bagpipes from Seven Sheds.  I loved both of them.  Too often pumpkin ales are too sweet for me and become cloying.  Making it a sour solved that issue and created a  great tasting beer.  The Smokin' Bagpipes had some great smoky flavor along with hints of scotch.   It was high alcohol at 7.5% ABV, but it was balanced and didn't taste boozy which is a problem with a lot of beers over 7% ABV.

While we were at Tom McHugo's, my wife and I talked about how we wouldn't be able to get to one of the signature museums in Hobart called MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) since it was outside the downtown area.  We weren't interested in driving there or taking an UBER.  While we were doing research for our next stop, I saw where there was a ferry from downtown that would take you to MONA.  That seems to be the universe making a decision for us.  My wife booked us tickets for the next available trip.  We still needed a destination before our ferry left.  Lark Distillery is a place we wanted to visit and we'd have about an hour before the ferry to try their spirits.  I had the bourbon flight which had all four of the ones  they make.  Cask Strength was my favorite, having the most bourbon flavor.

After the flights, we headed to the ferry dock.  It is easy to spot the MONA ferry boat.

When booking our tickets, there was an option to get Posh Pit tickets which meant you got to sit in a special lounge and had open bar and snacks included.  Of course we had to try it!!  There was plenty of comfortable seating.  We quickly received plate of marinated veggies, cheese, meats and hummus.  We decided to get some dry rose which was great with the meat and cheese.

It was about a 30 minute ride to the museum.

One of the first "exhibits" we found was a slot machine for beer!!

You used a credit card to be able to pull the lever.  And there were several Moo Brew beers available.  Moo Brew is a local brewer in Tasmania.  There was also a Foster's Oil Can beer which was the only time I had seen this in Australia.  If this was Let's Make a Deal, Foster's would have been the ZONK prize.  We wanted anything but Foster's.  Luckily we got the Moo Brew Pilsner.

I have been to several modern art museums around the world.  This museum had some of the craziest exhibits I have ever seen. 

This was a water feature that spelled out the most commonly searched words on Google every few seconds.

This exhibit was an optical illusion.  You walked out to a bridge and it looked like it was a mirrored reflection of the walls.

In reality, it was a large pool of oil that was on either side of the bridge that caused the reflection.  Had never seen anything like it.

This was an exhibit of the human digestive system.  It has the various stages of digestion from left to right.  "It" eats every four hours.  The right most vessel is exactly what you know is the last process in human digestion.  And the aroma in the room makes that very clear.  This is definitely the most over the top exhibit I have ever seen in a museum.

If you want an interesting experience where each new exhibit will definitely keep your mind thinking, you need to visit the MONA!!  We had visited as many exhibits as we had time for and now it was almost time for our ferry.  We went outside to wait and found the museum cafe which had several local beers.  I did a Moo Brew flight of their Dark Ale, Single Hop Enigma, Hefeweizen and Pale Ale.  All very tasty although the Dark Ale was my favorite.

We took the ferry back to downtown and were also in the Posh Pit.  Instead of cheese and meats, this time we received some sweet treats of what I will call truffles even though those are usually round and covered in chocolate.  From left to right we had raspberry chocolate, tiramisu, brownie and pistachio.  All were tasty although I liked the tiramisu the best.  

We docked at the pier and started  the short walk back to our hotel apartment.    We needed some dinner.  Earlier in the week I had spotted an asian dumpling restaurant that looked good.  We decided to head to Pot Sticker Dumpling House.  We were pretty hungry from all the walking.  We started with an order of pan fried dumplings.  These were perfectly crunchy on one side and puffy and doughy on the other.  With savory, moisty pork filling inside.  Usually you might want a dipping sauce, but these were perfect by themselves.

Then we had an order of steamed pork buns.  These are usually some of my favorite comfort foods and these ones didn't fail me.  Pillowy bundles with sweet and salty BBQ pork filling.

Green Beans with Minced Pork was next.  Al dente green beans in a pork based spicy sauce.

 Beef fried rice was next.  The fresh herbs helped elevate this one.

And one of my all time favorite dishes, soup dumplings!!  If you have never had these, they are sealed dumplings which have meat or vegetables and hot soup.  There is a technique to eating these where you need to take a small bite out of the corner of the dumpling and then drink the broth.  Then you are able to eat the dumpling.  At least that is the way I was taught twenty years ago at Joe Shanghai in downtown NYC.  If you have never tried these, order them the next time you are at your favorite noodle house.

After a long day, it was time to get back to the hotel and get ready for our flight to Melbourne in the morning.   Hard to believe that our time in Tasmania has come to an end.  But we have three nights in Melbourne.  Look for those blogs to be uploaded soon.

First Full Day in Hobart: Tasman Island, Dolphins and Port Arthur

In each of the three cities we visited, we had one day with a full day excursion that was more adventurous.  For Hobart, that would be a cruise around Tasman Island followed by a visit to Port Arthur.   We had an early meetup time of 7:30AM.  Today's breakfast was a quick muesli granola bar and some much needed coffee at the hotel apartment.  It was a quick walk to the tour office where we would pick up the bus.  After checking in, we were boarding the bus and on our way.  The first stop was at the Port Arthur Lavender farm where scones and tea were waiting.  We found out this was actually a stop so that they could pick up more passengers from the Port Arthur location for the tour company.  We enjoyed both savory (bacon and cheese) and sweet scones served with a lavender jam and cream.

The views were magnificent.  I also went to the distillery where they showed how they make lavender spirits including gin.  I had never heard of anywhere in the United States where this is done but it was quite common in Australia.

Distilling equipment at Port Arthur Lavender farm

After the short stop, it was back on the bus to drive to the pier for boarding our boar.  We were boarding small boats that were designed specifically for the rough conditions in the water around Tasman Island.

The views we saw were amazing!!  So many caves!!  And it was interesting to see how the water had eroded the rocks over the years.

We also saw the most amazing pod of dolphins!!  Check out the video below.  I highly recommend this sailing.



  

The cruise around Tasman Island was about two hours and we were now headed to get dropped off at Port Arthur.  I had never heard of Port Arthur before booking this excursion so it was all new.  What I learned is that it was used as a hard labor camp for housing "criminals" from England.  I use quotations since the majority of the people sent here had committed petty crimes.  England had made conditions so bad for the poor that many had to steal bread just to feed their family.   Port Arthur was built to house these criminals.  Crimes were punished by sending the accused across  the world to what was called Van Diemen's Land at the time. Sentences were for a minimum of seven years.  Even if a prisoner completed their sentence, most had no way to get back to England since they would have had to pay their own way on a ship and would have no money.  Then getting jobs in Port Arthur area were scarce, even if someone was willing to hire them based on their being a prisoner.

 Port Arthur was more than just a prison.  It had a church, doctor's offices, gardens and officers quarters.    Families of the officers lived at Port Arthur.  It was very much a community, even with the terrible conditions the prisoners suffered.

Before we started our tour, we were given a card that had one of the residents that had lived at Port Arthur.  You had to go to a gallery to find out who that person was. There is a picture of the card I received below.  Was he a convict of officer?  More on that later. 

We then had lunch.  The tour guide had asked us earlier whether we wanted salmon or ham for lunch.  I went with salmon.  When we showed up to the cafe, the table was preset with the lunch I picked.

Soon they served a hot soup which was a pumpkin cream.  It could have used some more salt for my taste but the hot soup was welcome on this cool day.

Pumpkin cream soup with roll

The bag included all kinds of goodies starting with this smoked salmon sub with fresh greens.  The salmon was so tasty and I can't think of any time where I had a sub with salmon as the protein.  Such a great idea.

Smoked Salmon Sandwich with greens on fresh baguette

Several desserts in the bag.  There was a gingerbread style cookie with chocolate (not pictured), a fresh apple (probably Fuji) and a piece of organic chocolate.  The apple was one of the best apples I had had.  Firm and juicy, with just a great mix of sweet and tart.

Apple and Chocolates

After lunch we started touring around the large grounds.  We only had a short time so had to pick a few areas to explore. 

They had many of the old buildings set up so you could tour them.  This was the doctor's home.

This was the remnants of the church.  There was a huge fire here that destroyed many of the buildings.

A view of the gardens and church.

And while I thought the person on my card looked very innocent, he was actually a convict.  He was convicted of stealing food.  This is the remnants of the small cell he inhabited.

After the tour, it was time to get on the bus back to where we were picked up in the morning.  It was about a 90 minute drive and there was time for a little napping.  I had done a little research the day before and found there was a section of town called Battery Point which had lots of bars and restaurants. It was only about 15 minute walk from where the bus let us off.  So off we went and found this great pub called the Whaler.    I tried Harbour Master from Hobart Brewing, the Hazy IPA from Balter Brewing, Raspberry Berliner Weisse from Wayward and Beetlejuice Black NEIPA.   All were good but Beetlejuice was my favorite with it's deep coffee flavors.  The beer quality in Australia had greatly improved since my last visit in 2012.  Back then, all the beers tasted the same - very malty and skunky without much hops.  I didn't recall seeing a single stout other than Guinness.  There were very little IPAs and the ones they did have were lacking hops.  So glad to see that the beer quality and variety has improved.

For (first) dinner I went with the Banh Mi sandwich with BBQ pork!!  This was so fresh and tasty with a roll that was perfect to sop up all the goodness!!

The fried cauliflower was terrific.  Lightly fried - a bit more batter than a tempura but super crispy.  This is hard to do with cauliflower since it has so much moisture.  I am thinking they may have partially roasted it before they fried it to get it so crispy. It was served with a chipotle sauce.

One of the more surprising things I discovered in Australia, and particularly Tasmania was all the gins they had.  I expected to see a huge selection of whiskeys and bourbons - which I did.  I saw the old standbys - plus some local brands.  But seeing all the local gins was impressive.   Some bars had about 50 gins - and only a few were brands I knew.   So many local gins.   This was one of the favorites called Deadman's Point.  In other future blogs, you'll see some of the other including one made from green ants!!  Yes - you could see the ants in the bottle, much like the worm in mezcal.

My wife and I were still a little bit hungry so went with some fried chicken tenders.  Maybe it was the atmosphere of being in a cool pub, but these tasted so good!!  They had a similar sauce that came with the cauliflower.  Crisp breading and tasty chicken - that is all you want in a good tender.  And the pickles they served on the side were no joke!!  They were the spiciest pickles I have ever had.  Must had had habaneros in the brine.

After a long day, we were ready to walk back to our hotel apartment.  Tomorrow we would be checking out a museum and trying some of the downtown pubs.