Hobart, July 2013

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I was in Hobart, Tasmania for PyCon AU which was really interesting. We didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing, but we did manage to go to the Female Factory,
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, MONA: Museum of Old and New Art.

The Female Factory was fascinating, but horrifying. It was the jail for women, including women who were transported from Australia. The women lived in terrible conditions, and would move through the levels (which determined the kind of labour they had to do). The level prior to release was a family would taking them as a servant (for which the family was paid). The women would often end up back in jail, because they had been raped.

MONA was bizarre. It’s a rich and eccentric man’s private collection. Some of it was quite graphically sexual, and it was… eclectic. Some of it I really liked, some of it was creepy. The building itself is pretty cool, too.

I stayed at the Wrest Point Conference and Entertainment Centre. The hotel itself was dated, and not particularly comfortable, with pretty terrible food. Redeeming features were some nice shops with cool things from local designers and I did have a great time at the spa!