Port Arthur

Many people in Australia can trace their family tree back to one of the convicts that was sent here in this colony's beginnings. The transportation sentence was often for something like stealing a loaf of bread in England or pickpocketing. Port Arthur, on the south tip of Tasmaina, was a centre for convicts who got into trouble while serving their 7 or 14 year sentence elsewhere in the colony. These were the bad boys of the system and were thus treated accordingly: sent to the coldest, most isolated spot in the colony for a few years of hard work, living in crowded conditions . Reasons to be sent to Port Arthur included anything from disobedience and talking back to your work gang superiors, trying to run away, or murder.



This is another one of those places that is all about the stories and the fascinating history. We began our exploration of Port Arthur with a card representing one convict, following his path through an exceptional exhibition. Then we joined up with a tour lead by superb story telling guides who told us about the horrors of the place or some of the enlightened changes--this is the first prison system in the British Empire that saw a need to seperate young boys from adult males. A teacher I work with has an ancestor who was sent to the boys' prison at about age 13 and, once freed, he settled in Australia and never reoffended.

At night, appropriately an exceptionally dark and rainy one, Damo dragged me along to the freaky ghost tour. Damo tried to tempt fate by casually strolling through the worst part of the prison grounds--the insane asylum and isolation cells, risking an encounter with one of the mad spirits they warned us about. Damn skeptical Damo.

Mungo National Park

On the map, the lakes of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area show up as big blue expanses, a deception. In reality, they are dry, salty, scrubby plains and have been thus for most of the past 10 000 years. So we didn't come here for the swimming, but instead, the Wall of China, a 33 km long white sand dune. It was very beautiful and, of course, we visited it at sunset to capture the colours.





But the thing about this outback park is not so much what you see now but the stories in it. 40 000 years ago, these were permanent lakes with huge wombat creatures, 3 metre tall kangaroos, giant Tasmanian tigers, and the ancestors of the local Aborigine groups all living here. As the winds have sifted through the sands of the dune, bones of these extinct animals, the people and their artifacts have been uncovered. Two most famous discoveries are of Mungo Women (1969) and Mungo Man (1974), two people that were buried here around 40 000 years ago in a ritualized manner. They are, as the archaeologist who found them, Jim Bowler, says, 'the earliest evidence on earth of cultural sophistication.' It just make you ponder our human history--the immensity of time we're dealing with and how very little we really know of our collective past.

relics of the convict past

One of the prettiest towns we stopped at in Tassie was Ross, where we stayed overtop a wood-fired stove bakery (yummy!) in a coaching inn dating from the early 1830s (convict build, of course). This same bakery is also the Anne of Green Gables destination in Australia for Japanese tourists because it is the setting for an anime film about Kiki, a cute little witch (Kiki's Delivery Service by Miyazaki).


The highlight of town is this interesting 1836 bridge, built by convicts after the first bridge collapsed. The main stonemason, Daniel Herbert, carved all the intricate arch stonework with Celtic imagery and stylized people he knew--the gov't officials he didn't like were depicted as grotesque monsters!

As this was the only major road between Hobart in the south and Launceston in the north, the bridge was needed urgently. However, it took much longer to build than it should have--material kept disappearing mysteriously, convicts got rich, the town houses aquired elaborate sandstone decorations and the government had to pour more money into this project. As a tourist, you can solve this mystery by buying a Skulduggery book and following the clues all around town--here I am sleuthing at the local hotel bar. We were disappointed it wasn't a murder mystery but it was still fun.


It seems almost everything old in Tasmania is convict built. This bridge was near the east coast on the way to Freycinet. I like all those spikey stones sticking up. No one really knows why they are there although they guess perhaps it has something to do with keeping the cattle on the bridge. Instead, I think it's all about upholding the convict image--a spikey bridge looks much more menacing.

Maria Island, Tasmania

March 17th and 18th, 2006

Maria Island National Park is located just off the eastern coast of Tasmania and is only accessible via 25 minute ferry ride. Cars are not allowed on the island. It has a long history with it being originally settled in the early 1800's as a penal colony (Tasmania is the home of 19th century penal colonies.) The settlement peaked sometime in the 20th century with over 600 people living on the island (well after its early penetentiary phase) and had a vineyard, a cement factory, quarry, wheat silos, etc.

All these buildings still remain in varying degrees of disrepair - some fully maintained (like the penetentiary in which we stayed the night) and some just bricks strewn across the landscape. From the base in Darlington (the old village) one can hike to goregous views in just a few minutes without running into another soul. It truly is stunning.


The painted cliffs are a short 45 minute hike from the main encampment and offer amazing views of Tasmania's coastline (not to mention the painted cliffs themselves.) The best part of Maria Island is the solitude you can experience by hiking a few kilometers from base camp.


That said...the solitude is can be interrupted by a hysterically crying thirteen year old girl in the next penetentiary dorm who didn't realize the thinly insulated walls resulted in us being able to hear every sob (over something that got wet or it was too dark or another relatively trivial matter) and every yell by an overbearing father that failed utterly in calming down a hysterical brat.

Ya, that's the penetentiary below where we thumbed our noses at the ghosts of ex-convicts and managed to survive what would have been a well-rested evening if not for the sobs of the teenaged girl and our OVERLY HEATED accomodations...apparently those old wood stoves can generate temperatures approaching that of the sun...

hot rods and huntsmans

we're in ulladulla right now, a cute little beachside town south of sydney, sleeping in a real bed (hoorah!), thanks to damo's friends, tony and jo. tony is a wine buff so we drank lots of kick ass wine last night and celebrated the day after my birthday (happy birthday me!). after this contact with the world over via internet, we're going to hit the beach again in our attempt to get rid of our sun reflecting pale white skin!

the past weekend was spent in canberra, the nation's capital. it's this neat designed city so it's full of green spaces (in theory, but was bone dry so they were all brown spaces), random public art and beautiful or weird buildings.

highlight: war memorial--a big, thorough, interesting, spectacular museum covering all of australia's involvement in what seems to be every major conflict in the past two hundred years.

lowlight: we chose the one weekend that sees canberra host a souped up car festival. we ended up on a crowded tent field in a caravan park with rowdies, young and old, who partied and revved their engines ALL night long. by night three we were cranky with no sleep.

wildlife update: damo killed a big ass spider outside the tent--probably a non-venomous huntsman but we didn't know at the time. damo tried to shoo it away but it reared up and tried to attack the twig (!!) he was using so he smooshed it under his shoe. we're reading a book on aussie's most dangerous animals so are in a heighted state of paranoia right now with anything creeping, crawling or swimming. we've seen a white tip spider in the bathroom of a friend's house already.

lots more to write about--it was australia's hottest new year's day on record (45.5 degrees outside of sydney!)--but we'll update once we hit geelong.

the nico