After our trip to Tasmania in February, we had planned on returning in late fall/early winter to Hobart to visit the Muesum of Old and New Art (MONA), Port Arthur, and hopefully get a glimpse of Aurora Australia (Southern Lights). So after returning to Australia, we randomly selected the weekend of 11May as the weekend to go. Although it is only an hour flight from Melbourne, our flight over was a bit rough. Due to fog we left late, circled over Hobart for awhile, then attempted to land and aborted landing, diverted to Lanceston and landed, refueled and by then the fog had cleared at Hobart, arriving six hours late. But during the six hour delay, we saw that the US had seen a high level of Northern Lights on the news and did some investigations and downloaded an app for Aurora chasing and learned all about Corona Mass Ejections (CMEs) and the Kp index (a metric which combines several aspects of geomagnetic storms). Simply put – the higher the Kp index, the farther from the North or South pole you can see the aurora.
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Aurora Australis
Hobart isn’t that far south (equivalent to Boston is north), but because everything south is ocean until you get to Antarctica, there is no light pollution, and the air is very clean, Hobart is well known for being able to see the auroras in the winter months. Below are Aurora 101 graphics.
After landing, we headed straight to Salamaca Market (which was closing at that time as it was late afternoon) which looks like it would have been great around lunchtime as it was a crisp fall day. We then went to Mount Wellington – stopped about halfway up as the top was fogged in and while we were looking out over the bays at sunset, I got a notification from my new app that people were seeing auroras and the Kp index was forecast for 9 (on a scale of 0-10). So we googled “best places for southern lights near Hobart” and Tinderbox Beach was first on the list – supposedly a short drive.
We were concerned as there were a lot of clouds and as we drove we transitioned to 2 lane roads then gravel roads but ultimately came back out into a small town and found Tinderbox Beach about 6pm. There were already some people there, so we were successful in finding other people who could google. Initially, we couldn’t see anything with the naked eye but the phone picks up colors. Over the next hour, the colors intensified and the aurora could be seen with naked eye. StarLink (Elon’s satellite system) came overhead as well which did freak some people out, but plenty of nerds were on hand to advise that we were not being invaded. By 8pm, the aurora was diminishing so we headed out – at this time there was a line of cars miles long to get into the areas around Tinderbox Beach. Although the highest Kp index was while we were there – all night was quite a light show away from city lights. We got back to Hobart and could see from the city, but barely.
The next day we went Port Arthur and Tasman National Park) which will be the subject of a different blog) and kept looking for auroras on the drive back as we were in a more remote viewing plan on the, but the Kp index never got over 5, and we got to Hobart late.
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
On our final day in Hobart, we went to the MONA which is the most famous attraction in Hobart and the one everyone says you have to go to. You don’t. Built by a person who made his fortune at the horse track gambling, it is a great building and like a movie set in many areas. But the contents are all over the place – and to their credit they own this a bit. Some of their brochures are “that is probably not art?”, “art your child have made”, “that is arguably immoral”, and “art that gives Elizabeth the shits”. Some pictures of the building interior structure attached – it is all underground.
We then found a nearby winery for the rest of the day with a final stop in Richmond heading to the airport. Nice countryside.
Definitely a trip to remember and I check the Kp index every night now as the aurora was visible from Melbourne on the coast.