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We had to unfortunately leave Tasmania and head back to mainland Australia.  😢  No offense to you mainland folks, but Tasmania has been amazing!

We took two flights north, way up to Cairns, Australia.  Our first flight landed in Sydney, which was obviously having a spectacular day based on this photo from the planes window.

After takeoff from Sydney we passed a mountain peak covered in clouds seemingly surrounded by smoke, which made for an interesting shot.  I sit in the window seat for a reason!

The weather went from quite cool (in the 60’s and 70’s) to somewhat warm (low 80’s), with a dramatic shift in humidity.  It feels a lot like Miami.  We arrived after dark and took a walk along the waterfront (they call it the Esplanade) to dinner.  There is a public pool adjacent to the ocean, complete with sandy beaches and even a sandy pool bottom.  Note there are no sand beaches in Cairns, so I guess this is their consolation prize.

The Esplanade is all lit up at night.

It seems they are really going for that Miami vibe.  I can hear the Miami Vice theme song as we strolled by!

These birds are everywhere along the waterfront.  These are called Bush-Thick-knee’s.  Their knees were basically non-existent, so I have no idea why this got this name!

So the next day we had a full schedule, where we were to board the “Kuranda Scenic Railway” and ride the train from Cairns Central Station to the little town of Kuranda.  We woke up early and made our way to the train station, got on the train, only to be told they had operational issues and the train portion of our trip was canceled.  More sad face!  One of the staff advised the Engineer had called in sick.  It’s not like he actually had to steer the train!  Suck it up buttercup!

I got on the phone with the Skyrail staff, and they arranged for a bus pickup at the train station about an hour later, so our day wasn’t destroyed.  The Skyrail was first built in 1995, and runs 7.5km through a portion of the Daintree Rainforest, the oldest continuous living rainforest in the world at 130 million years old.

There are two stops along the way, with the first being Red Peak, which has some huge trees!  The one below is covered in other growth, climbing up the tree towards the sunlight!

Whereas this tree drops it’s lower limbs and has very tough bark, which makes it immune to the “climbers” in the rainforest.

You jump back on the Skyrail to transit to the next stop.  The views of the rainforest are incredible!

As you near the next stop this incredible waterfall comes into view.  This is Barron Falls.

There is another stop on the Skyrail journey, where you get several different perspectives on Barron Falls.

Yet another perspective.  Really gorgeous waterfall!

No post about waterfalls would be complete without a video!

At the end of the line is the little town of Kuranda.  We got some lunch and a beer here, before we headed back via the Skyrail.  This sign has become completely overgrown…that’s the rainforest for you.

On the way back we had upgraded to the “Diamond View”, with a clear plexiglass view to the rainforest below.  Was it worth it?  Yeah, kind of.

Here is where you hit one of the stops on the way back.  Do the stops on the way in so you don’t miss them, particularly because you’ll end up being worried about getting back in time for the bus ride back to Cairns.

At one stop we were advised that when James Cameron was researching the movie “Avatar” he came here and rode the Skyrail with some of his staff to check out this specific rainforest because of it’s ancient age.  We’ll have to go back and watch the movie again to look for similarities.

I took this shot through the Diamond View as I could see a large lake on the forest floor.

The views off both sides of the Skyrail are excellent!  This is definitely a “must do” in the Cairns region!

We saw a lot of these flowers at the top of some of the trees, so I had to get a photo.  This tree is called a Red Silk Cotton Tree!

Our bus driver back from the Skyrail was hilarious, and also dropped us off right at our hotel (while commenting that we must be filthy rich since this was a 5 star hotel).  I think a few folks looked at us a little differently when we got off the bus.  Oh well, F em.  Right?

We walked to dinner a little bit earlier, and saw the waterfront in full daylight.  A lot of people give Cairns some negativity because they don’t have a beach, but the waterfront is still quite attractive.  I will say the downtown area looks pretty downtrodden, and isn’t the most attractive city you are going to run across in Australia, but it is near great stuff to see and do!

Coming up next, we pick up our rental car and drive 1.5 hours north to Silky Oaks Lodge, our gorgeous home for the next three days.

 

After returning from Port Arthur I definitely needed a beer, so we walked around the corner from our hotel to the Hobart Brewing Company.  The Harbour Master Amber Ale was pretty good.  I’m just glad they had an amber ale, as they are becoming quite hard to find.

It was a Friday night, so the place was packed!  Loved the hops hanging from the supports, even though I don’t like hoppy beers.

The next morning was a Saturday, so we walked through the Salamanca Market, which is like a rite of passage in Hobart.  We ended up at a booth that has artwork from Jake Mikoda, who makes beautiful bronze pieces, some of which we had seen previously in Cradle Mountain.  I had been thinking about buying a Tasmanian Devil piece since then, so I went ahead and made the splurge.  Here is a photo from his website (mine is all wrapped up for the trip home).

That afternoon we got on the ferry to a famous “must-see” called MONA, the “Museum of Old and New Art”, a bizarre collection of stuff from a very wealthy guy, David Walsh, who didn’t have anywhere else to store it.  This guy apparently made his fortune  by developing a gambling system to bet on horse racing and other sports.  In other words, he is using art to launder money.

Hey, at least the ferry ride was fun, with Hobart in the background.  In case you were wondering, in the foreground is the side of a white plastic cow, which was a sign of things to come.  Mr Walsh isn’t exactly known for his tastes!

We passed under the Tasman Bridge, which feels like a very dangerous drive if you ever decide to cross it, with 5 lanes of traffic and no divider.  You could easily high-five somebody driving the opposite direction.  Just one more crossing on the way to the airport and we are clear!

After entering MONA you take the elevator down to the 3rd floor…most of the museum is underground (for good reason?).  One of the first pieces of “artwork” is this young Mick Jaggar sleepwalking on a corn-hole target, with sausages hanging off the end.  I can actually feel you asking WTF?  I completely agree!

A MONA blog post states the following:  “I have no idea what the salamis are about, but I feel the pose, the altered body scale, and the wonky table, together convey the artist’s sense of helplessness and inadequacy in the face of art history.”  Well of course!  Like, duh!  I feel so stupid having not seen this obvious reason for this artwork!

Then, just a few feet away from Mick is this Egyptian woman’s coffin from between 1550-1069 BC.  Real artwork versus 3rd grader paper-mache crap just a meter or so apart.  This David Walsh dude is a tool!

Here is a crushed car on an under-lit stand, something you can see in pretty much any wrecking yard (minus the dramatic stand).  Not entirely sure what the point of this was, but to be honest, I don’t really car enough to find out (pun intended).

This McDonald’s arch was created by a Chinese artist, who makes these for a living.  Here is the take on her artwork:  “Through the combination of the McDonald’s theme and carefully crafted, traditionally painted porcelain, Lihong sparks a dialogue on cross-cultural exchanges and opens a conversation between precious object and consumer commodity.”  Do these come in the Happy Meals in China?  Is Lihong friends with Fang Fang, Eric Swalwell’s girlfriend?  These are questions that need answers!

Right around the corner from the Golden (Blue?) Arches are these two Egyptian hieroglyph stone art pieces.  The one on the left is “Lion Hunt Scarab of Amenhotep III”, from 1380-1352 BC, which tells the story of how Amenhotep single-handedly killed 102 lions with his bow and arrow.  The one on the right is also about Amenhotep, which commemorates his marriage to Queen Tiye in 1379 BC.

It was here I decided they need to have one floor for cool old shit like this, and one floor for the rest of the crap spread throughout, but that’s just one man’s opinion.

This huge piece of leather is supposed to represent a crushed Soviet tank, created by a Chinese artist. Yeah, so what?  Crushed leather means what exactly?  They used the leather from 250 cows for this.  There are people in China freezing to death in the winter…make some clothes out of those poor cows!  Oh, by the way, don’t even think about touching the leather!  In the few minutes we were in this area the Gestapo guard had to remind 2 people “Thou shall not touch the sacred leather”, or something to that effect.

When we were in Melbourne just a couple weeks ago we saw the original Picasso piece titled “Weeping Woman” from 1937.  MONA had a rather crude copy, based on my photo of the original you can see here.  This was painted by artist Juan Davila after the original was stolen in 1986, and he offered it to the Melbourne gallery as a replacement.  Sorry, but I’d not be interested in seeing a poor replacement of a Picasso in a gallery.  Fortunately the original was returned unharmed.

This helmet was worn by the late Heath Ledger in the movie Ned Kelly, a movie we have yet to see.  This guy’s collection knows no boundaries.

This Oliver doll from Oliver Twist” was supposedly cut in half by the same guillotine that cut off the head of Marie Antoinette.  This guy searches out some fricking bizarre pieces!!  I highly doubt some French dude bothered to cut a doll in half with a guillotine.

We actually liked this display, which was made from 80 tons of sand, and only sand.  Quite amazing!  Far more artistic than Mick Jagger on a corn-hole board!

This disaster landscape is quite remarkable based on the quality and reality of the artwork!  All with sand!  Amazing!

Ok, almost done with the weird art!  You walk down a long tunnel and then into this room of bizarre colors and shapes.  This would truly be a great place to get stoned…if I was still in my 20’s.  This display is called “The Grotto”.  There were some people laying on the ground looking up at this that seemed like they had been there awhile.  We didn’t stay long, as it was giving off cult vibes. I’m pretty sure I heard somebody whispering something about Scientology.

Now this piece if very cool, and had I known it was here, it would have been worth the price of admission on it’s own.  This is an authentic Enigma Machine from Nazi Germany, that was used to send secret messages about Nazi war plans.  This machine was cracked by the famous mathematician Alan Turing, which was memorialized by the excellent 2014 movie “The Imitation Game”.

There are several tunnels that look a lot like this one.  I think he might be a bit obsessed with James Bond, or Stargate!  Loud futuristic music plays in each of these, as if you are walking into a new dimension.

This is known as the “Fat Car”.  It’s a full sized Porsche Carrera chassis molded into obesity using polystyrene and fibreglass.  All I can say is, what a waste of a Porsche!  Other than that, I don’t get it.  Just another reason some people shouldn’t have that much money.

Ok, we finally left MONA, and got a photo of our ferry as it pulled in to pick us up.  I’m unsure of the reason for the use of desert camo…just to be different?

We were lucky to see the sunset on the ferry ride back to Hobart.  Tasmania is so gorgeous!  Come here!  Seriously!

Up next, we fly north nearly 1800 miles from Hobart to Cairns, where we plan to visit the oldest rainforest in the world, as well as expect a major change in the weather.