29th November - bikie toy run - MONA - Gilbert & George

Sunday 29^th November 2015

Fat Car (MONA)

Hobart life continues to be entertaining and varied.   Yesterday we clambered across the Brooker Highway and found a safe position on the edge of the Domain.  We could see straight across to North and West Hobart and up Summerhill Rd; Hobart is so very pretty.

But what we were waiting for was – 4000-odd motorbikes!  The annual bikie toy run.  Well…we do enjoy a spectacle.  One of the front riders was Pete’s friend Damian (former Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions) who drove past resplendently on his big Harley.  He stopped for a chat and then it was all GO as the thousands of bikes went past.

I particularly liked the muppet helmets; they were just that bit crazy.  

We followed the bikes down to the waterfront and meandered mongst them, exclaiming at their shininess, and at how very big they all seemed to be.  Some of them were about as big as a car, and as comfortable as a very expensive leather armchair.

On the way back we went to Salamanca Square to look at the very controversial Council Christmas tree.  Tasmania has been ridiculed far and wide in the media for having “the ugliest Christmas decoration in Australia.”  Well…not so much.  I thought it was quite pleasant and quirky, but we couldn’t see how on earth it has cost us rate payers $35,000…

Today we went to MONA.

Sidney Nolan's Snake is still there - so wonderful!

Loved it, as always!  There is a new exhibition – Gilbert and George, VERY famous artists from the UK.  They have been working together since, I think 1968, and their art is large, loud, colourful, confronting.

We found it fascinating and exhilarating and we left MONA after two and a half hours with our heads bursting with images and over-stimulated with new ideas.

Our friend Erin is back there working, after seven months of overseas adventures.   We told her about our friend from Adelaide and her recent day of displeasure at MONA.   Erin was very amused.  She said lots of people hate MONA with a passion, and the displays make them very angry.  But, she said, it is strange how they manage to stay there for a whole day, getting more enraged as the day goes by…