a whore's guide to tasmania

where do you take you boyfriend on their 43rd birthday?

where do you take someone that has been around the world? for fuck's sake, he has even been to easter island?

for many, i doubt the answer to this question is Tasmania. but that's exactly where i took him. to a place he had never been before. looks. it's all beautiful and shit

the first time i came to tasmania with my motorbike stashed on the ferry i was all excited. and it sure didn;t take long before i heard some traveller innocently ask the old lady at the tourist information desk "excuse me, do you have a map of tasmania?"

i nearly choked, sniggered my tits off and quickly staggered out. no doubt the old lady wasn;t stupid and got this all the time

(for non-Australians, because they both share a triangular shape, a 'map of tasmania' or 'map of tassie' refers to a woman's vaginal bush)

Mount Wellington. fucking nice, eh?

bribie? i don't know. some fucking island thing. it even had a lighhouse and shit

yeah pretty stuff is nice, but more importantly, i wanted to take him to MONA on his birthday.

MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) is the art gallery for people who don't like art galleries. and even those that do will jizz their pants

free for residents of tasmania, $20 for everyone else. that sort of thing might piss me off it didn't out to be the best thing i have ever seen. also, i recently paid $25 to see a Picasso exhibition in Sydney that was underwhelming as fuck. the only thing i learned about him then is once you find the tits in a Picasso, the rest of the female figure just falls into place. MONA also lets you takes all the pictures you want

if you want to read what some boring old fuck thinks about MONA go here. but if you're not a miserable old cunt, look at these photos. it is worth flying to hobart just for this museum

old art = boring

oh wait. there's a penis! a really fucking ugly penis. i love art!

fuck reading shit on a wall. MONA gives you an ipoddy thing that gives info and you can rate it 'love' or 'hate' anything that doesn't polarise the audience and gets a middle of the road response (equally loved and hated) will soon be removed from the gallery

i think this was favourite - Berlinde De Bruyckere

Melbourne Burning - Arthur Boyd

huge and incredible M.C. Escher-like sculptures carved from metal and tractor tyres

Wim Delvoye

 another favourite *kisses*

Hobart isn't the most exciting place to be. it's a nice quiet little city but it's also a little bit of a shit hole. so instead of pussying out and flying back to sydney after a couple of days we drove out to the most remote part of the land we could find. Queenstown. smack in the heart of the national park, this former mining town is the bloody fissure on Australia's raped asshole, a grim reminder of what happened when tear up the land. the land was once beautiful, but after a 100 years of mining there are enormous holes in the landscape, hills stripped so bare it looks like the surface of the moon and a river so poisonous it will stay that way for over a thousand years spilling out into the ocean

welcome to queenstown

the little town just before Queenstown

this was the middle of summer

in Queenstown. some dumbfuck AFL nut flaunts his impressive obsession

the gay miners of Queenstown. imagine a rin job from one of those handlebar 'taches. 

the one on the end looks like Michael from Tales of the City. i'd fuck him

half the people in this town were great small town folk. a little on the freaky and interesting side. the rest were just small town jerks that have a sunday dinner in the pub and piss the rest fo their cash away on the poker machines. sad fucks. there is a hefty tourist trade here for such a small town. you can see them wander in, look around and struggle for things to entertain themselves with

one of my flatmates from melbourne has the best story that sums up Queenstown in one short speech. Leith grew up in Tasmania so he's fully aware of all the slow brained inbred hillbilly expectations of the people. on a holiday he was in the main bar of the Queenstown pub. he sat down. ordered a beer and packet of crisps. the bar wench poured his beer and dropped a packed of plainly salted crisps in front of him.

he looked up at her and asked "could i have a bowl for my chips?"

upon his request the fat slags nostrils flared. she slammed her meaty sausage fingers down on the hefty wooden bar and barked, "listen mate! we don't go for none of that fancy shit here!"

somehow the nasty history and current personality of this town on the verge of death charmed us enough to keep us around for 3 days. but i think i could have gone anywhere with the Elk and i would have had a kick arse time. though ultimately there was fuck all to do so we found and abandoned asbestos-ridden hospital and ran around like dickheads

former queenstown hospital. and one of the few recovered green hills around it.

had a chat to a local. the old bugger was thrilled that the countryside was recovering

inside the oldest part of the hospital. with all the grim wood and the funky carpet i expected to see a little kid scooting around the hallways on a tricycle and a couple of axe-murdered twins

baby steps

being a dickhead

on the wall outside of the hospital. still one of my favourite pieces i  have seen anywhere

oh, and Hobart was shit for work. there was little interest because of recent law reforms making it illegal (but not really illegal) but illegal enough to scare everybody off. cunts