Wednesday, June 21

Today is the Winter Solstice and we woke to a heavy frost.  However, the good news is that the sun is shining and it hasn't taken long for the frost to disperse.  A couple of hours before we opened our eyes, over 1000 hardy souls gathered on a bleak beach in Hobart for the annual Dark Mofo nude swim.  What possesses otherwise sane people to take part in such a bizarre event.  Of course, there are the exhibitionists, and the 'anything for a dare' mob.  There may be some doing it to upset their mum, and there are probably one or two who believe it will give tham a spiritual re-awakening.  But, even the Lord Mayor of Hobart has taken part for the last five years, although he may see it as his contribution to tourism.

Well, for whatever reason 1020 people took the plunge this morning.  So many turned up, the organisers ran out of towels.  Experience in previous years shows that a good percentage of those registered don't turn up.  The general excuse is that they 'get cold feet'.  This year, more people than expected didn't get cold feet, but turned up to get other parts of their body cold instead and there weren't enough towels to go around.

This event is part of the Dark Mofo Festival, a very strange off-shoot of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) which has single-handedly turned around the fortunes of Hobart Tourism.  Established by a private individual who made his money as a professional poker player, MONA is now on the must see list of international art lovers.

The Dark Mofo Festival, like MONA, sets out to shock.  This year, one of the events took participants on a ferry to Bruny Island where, on a dark hillside, they watched dozens of elderly men and women in striped pyjamas and dressing gowns making clicking noises, for no apparent reason.  Another involved a slaughtered bull, it's entrails and 500 litres of blood.  

It's probably not on my list of things to do but who am I to argue with something which brings so much to this state.