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The Museum of New and Old Art, or MONA, as it is affectionately known, is a weird and wonderful place, where ancient Egyptian mummies are placed next to an overweight Lamborghini and intrigue lingers with you, long after you’ve left the gallery.
I flew down to Hobart hot on the tails of their Lonely Planet accolade (the city was crowned number 7 in the guide book’s top destinations for 2013) with no doubt in my mind that the newest museum in the country had something to do with this.
The first thing I noticed as I walked into the hillside monolithic museum was the smell. Everybody around me could smell it. They looked at each other perplexed. It was worse than any zoo I'd visited. People in museums are inherently polite, but you could hear whispers of disbelief as they furiously checked their guidebooks for clarification. I checked the walls for plaques, but nothing could define this smell.
I decided I had to question an official-looking woman. With nostrils of steel, she answered, without even flinching: "Oh, it's the excrement machine, it mimics the human intestinal system." I had heard that MONA is famous for its shock-factor. But I was expecting a few phallic shaped sculptures and some wild pubic hair brush-strokes - not this.
"We feed it twice a day and it poos daily. You've just missed the 2pm release of faeces, but you can see it over there on the conveyor belt." And there it was - a prize dump, fresh and still steaming before my very eyes. There was a row of machines representing the digestive system, breaking down the food, churning it around like soiled washing machines. "You never know what you're going to get. Yesterday it was runny," I overheard the guide.
We were lucky to see this solid, chorizo-shaped poo. The Mona Lisa of shits. My guidebook, which is actually an iPhone-like device, tells me this is ‘Cloaca Professional’, by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, part of the museum’s Monanism exhibition. The closer you got, the more horrid the smell. And yet, now that my brain has registered this healthy looking shit, the smell was kind of intriguing. Just one more whiff before I go. If this was the ground level, what else was I in for?
MONA is the brainchild of Hobart-born David Walsh, a self-made millionaire, professional gambler, university drop-out and all-round eccentric. He owns the museum and everything in it, therefore he has this I-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want attitude, which is exactly what I love about this museum. This subterranean collection of art could inspire even the most terrified of art-phobics. In fact, the first exhibition is a bar, which we all know helps you digest the experience. (Pun intentional.)
Walsh is also fascinated with death, from the suicide machine, to the collection of funeral songs on a jukebox to the cinerarium where, for $75,000, you can put your ashes on display. I was enamored with the anal lipstick kisses that are prettily pressed on hotel paper. Don't ask. They are exactly as they sound, and perhaps a great idea for a Valentine's Day card, for those who have exhausted every other avenue. That didn't come out right. MONA has certainly perverted me.
Then there's the simple - the white library where the books and bookcases are all painted white. This is the calm before the storm. Outside you are met with 200 porcelain vagina moulds, like the anal kisses, each one tells a different story. Walsh doesn't call it the "subversive adult Disneyland" for nothing. It might not be for everyone but I can tell you there's nothing cheap about it. For a gallery full of shit and genitals it's surprisingly tasteful. Seriously, MONA makes the sex museum in Amsterdam look like a tacky hen's night.
See: mona.net.au
Madame Tussauds waxworks on Sydney's Darling Harbour, is where you get to make friends with the stars..
It sounds like a dream. You're in a room full of celebrities who are all smiling and waiting to have their photo taken with you. Not one to disappoint, you oblige, placing an arm around each celebrity and smiling cheesily at your friend who is pointing their iphone in your direction, ready to shoot and upload straight to Instagram. Suddenly you realise Britney Spears, and in fact all the celebs, are actually made of wax. Quickly, you pinch yourself to wake up from the bizarre dream. Except it's not a dream, you are at Madame Tussauds waxworks, otherwise known as the closest you may ever be to placing your arm around Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Best make the most of it then.
Reviews International writers Autumn Mooney and Sarah Doran visited Madame Tussauds during a three month visit from Britney Spears and Beyonce Knowles (waxworks.) Madame Tussauds has waxwork studios all around the world, and occasionaly the statues travel to cities abroad. Of course, this meant Sarah got to shake her booty with beyonce, and Autumn got to hold Britney's MTV award. Followed by both immediatley social media posting to Facebook and Instagram, claiming to have new BFF's with the pics to prove..
Aside from the social media opportunities and pretending to be best friends with a re-incarnate Michael Jackson, Madame Tussauds offers a great 3D gauk at people you see images of in mainstream media all the time. Viewing a life-size waxwork lets you view details you often can't tell from a photograph. See how tiny Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga really are in comparison to yourself, or how teensy Olivia Newton John's waist really was back in the 1978 movie Grease. Remember what John Farnham looked like in his heydey, and see the extraodinary heights Justin Biebers fringe really does boof up to. The leaders room lets you pose in the office with Obama, contemplate with Nelson Mandela, Stand by Julie Gillard at the lectern, or sit on the royal throne by the queen.
Recommended - to people who love to social media, and celebrity stalkers - you will adore Madame Tussads
You haven’t truly been to the Blue Mountains unless you’ve viewed the spectacular landscape sights from a cable car at Scenic World. Or ridden in Scenic World’s steep rainforest railway; descending from the top of a rocky mountainside down a slow drop to the bottom of thick lush rainforest.
The Blue Mountains are a short two-hour drive from the city of Sydney, and well worth the day trip. Famous for the rock formations known as The Three Sisters, the Blue Mountains are also a great place to go for fresh air, relaxation, and especially winter festivals. The arty, crafty villages will charm your thermal socks off, and are all close to each other atop the mountain area making a village-hopping drive-by very easy.
You’ll find Scenic World well signposted with lots of parking. Scenic World is mainly a divine walking track looping through forest with a ‘choose your own adventure’ option on which path you take. Everyone will start off at the check-in. Take the steep railway to the bottom of the rainforest, and then pick a path to walk around the lush raised walking tracks through tall trees and flowing creeks. There’s a cable car to take from one side of the rocks, over the rainforest to the other, in super close view of the tumbling waterfall and three sisters.
The best way to experience Scenic World is with a guided tour. My tour guide was Murray, who grew up in the Blue Mountains, and whose grandfather was an original Scenic World railway engineer driver. Murray tells interesting stories of the land’s history of the great coal mining days, points out the tools & machinery left behind so camouflaged I wouldn’t spot it, and describe interesting facts about the fauna and flora which you will walk through. A tour guide is also brilliant because instead of iphone-googling for answers to all your hundreds of questions that pop to mind like ‘how can you tell how many billion years old that dicksonia Antarctica fern really is?’ Murray will tell you – count the rings. Murray even holds the talk on Carnivorous plants. Kids love it. I’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors - think I would too!
If traveling in the winter months of Australia, the Blue Mountains are well worth a day trip, at an easy two-hour drive out of the Sydney city. Instead of hibernating like the rest Australia, the arty Blue Mountain folk liven up their lives with a fantastic Winter Solstice Festival on the shortest day of the year. Held annually, stalls line along the main street of Katoomba, selling an assortment of treats. You’ll find homemade warming foods, arts, crafty wares, hand-made soaps and candles, and aromatic coffee stalls aka hot chocolate stalls.. mmmm. This festival is a good opportunity to stroll through the town and local gift shops, while talented locals serenade Katoomba with violins or (as spotted) a guitar made out of a wooden box. At midday, the parade with possibly the best dazzling costumes you’re likely to see in Australia, will descend along the main street. People from near and far gather to watch (perhaps with a spicy chai tea or warm mulled wine in hand, plus scarves and beanie’s) as the parades pass by. The annual Winter Solstice Festival in the Blue Mountains is a daytrip your itinerary will thank you for. If it could speak.
Website for more info: www.wintermagic.com.au