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.