MONA: Hobart Travel Guide (4.3★)

Down Into the Sandstone

From the approach, MONA barely looks like a museum. It sits low on a knuckle of land poking into the Derwent River, and you see a mirrored wall and a few rooflines on the Moorilla vineyard. The galleries themselves are cut into the rock beneath your feet.

You go in at ground level. Then a spiral staircase takes you down about three storeys, into a cavern where the raw sandstone wall runs the full height of the space. You start at the bottom and work your way back up.

Tasmanian gambler and collector David Walsh opened the Museum of Old and New Art in 2011, and the architect was Nonda Katsalidis. The building is a mix of concrete, steel and rust-coloured corten, and the rooms rarely feel like a standard gallery. Corridors dead-end, lighting drops to near-black and rooms open out when you don’t expect it.

This is one of Tasmania’s most-visited attractions and one of the most-reviewed museums in Australia. Don’t come looking for a quiet secret. Plan for a crowd and time your visit around it.

Getting Up the Derwent

The ferry is the classic way in. MONA’s own boats leave from Brooke Street Pier on the Hobart waterfront, and the trip upriver takes about 25 minutes. You pass the Tasman Bridge, the docks and the hills of the eastern shore on the way.

Book your ferry seat together with your museum entry on MONA’s official website. Prices and ferry times are posted there too. Sailings fill up on weekends and during festival weeks.

Other options:

• Driving: Berriedale is roughly 12km north of the city centre along the Brooker Highway and Main Road. There’s parking on site.
• Bus: Metro Tasmania buses run up Main Road from the city towards Glenorchy. Check the route and which stop to use before you go.
• Cycling: The Intercity Cycleway runs north from Hobart towards Glenorchy, close to the river, which makes for a flat ride.

No Labels, Just the O

You won’t find wall labels in MONA. Information comes through the O, the museum’s own guide, which now runs as an app on your phone. It uses your location to work out which works are around you.

Each work comes with several layers. There’s the usual artist and title, then interviews, and then sections with names like “Art Wank” and “Gonzo”, where Walsh gives his own blunt and often funny opinion. You can also mark each piece as “love” or “hate”, and the app shows you how other visitors voted.

Before you head down the stairs:

• Charge your phone fully. The galleries are underground and you’ll use the app for hours.
• Pack headphones. Many of the O’s audio segments are worth hearing in full.
• Download the app over wifi before you set off, not in the queue.

The Works People Travel For

The collection mixes ancient pieces with contemporary art. Egyptian coffins and antiquities can sit a room away from something made for shock value. The main themes are sex and death, and the museum says so openly.

Pieces that have become part of the museum’s reputation:

• Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca Professional: a mechanical digestive system that gets fed and does exactly what you’d expect. The smell is part of the work.
• Julius Popp’s bit.fall: a curtain of falling water that spells out words taken from live news searches.
• Sidney Nolan’s Snake: a huge mural made of more than 1,600 panels, running across a long gallery wall.

Works rotate and temporary exhibitions change, so don’t treat any single piece as guaranteed. The O shows what’s on display that day. Some rooms carry warnings for graphic content or have a separate entry queue. Take those warnings seriously if you have children with you.

Beating the Weekend Crush in Berriedale

On Saturdays and Sundays the museum is busy for the whole day, from the 10am opening to the 5pm close. There’s no gap in the middle of the day. If you can, move your visit to a weekday.

It’s only open three weekdays: Monday, Thursday and Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday it’s shut. That catches out a lot of people who plan a midweek day trip. Check the day before you book a ferry.

A few habits that help:

• Book ahead for both entry and the ferry, and keep the booking on your phone.
• Take the first ferry of the day if you’re stuck with a weekend. You’ll get down the spiral staircase before the rooms fill up.
• Start at the bottom and don’t rush. Most people go straight for the headline works, so take side rooms first while the main ones are crowded.
• Leave the last hour for the grounds. With a 5pm close, a late-morning start can feel short once you add food and the ferry home.

Wine, Beer and the Moorilla Grounds

When you come back up, you’re standing in a working vineyard. Moorilla has been growing grapes on this peninsula for decades, well before the museum was built. There’s a wine bar where you can try what they grow.

Moo Brew, the brewery that started on the site, is the house beer label. On a clear day, people take a drink out to the lawns with the river right below them. Check the official site for current bars, restaurants and tastings, as these change over time.

Take a look outside, too. Sculptures and installations are spread across the lawns and paths, and one of MONA’s most photographed views is the sandstone building from the water as your ferry comes in to dock.

Timing Around the Festivals

MONA runs events well beyond gallery hours. The best known is Dark Mofo, a winter festival held around the June solstice. It brings night-time art, music and feasting to Hobart and draws visitors from across Australia.

Festival weeks change everything in this guide: ferries, crowds and bookings. If your trip lands in June, book museum entry and accommodation well ahead. If you want the galleries quieter, pick a Monday, Thursday or Friday outside festival season.

Allow three to four hours for the galleries alone. Add the ferry both ways and time on the grounds, and MONA fills most of a day.