Day 39 / 2015 - Hobart to Port Arthur

We tried to stay some extra days in Hobart but the caravan park was all booked out over the long weekend so we packed up and headed off towards Port Arthur our next destination. Being a long weekend we thought the park at Port Arthur would also be booked out so we decided to stop at a free camp at the town of Sorell approx 25 Km from Hobart.

We spent 5 days at Sorell. On one occasion we revisited the town of Richmond only 30 minutes away and on another day Hobart but mostly we just lazed the days away not doing much or catching up on caravan chores. Anne tried some more cake baking in the Webber Baby Q which proved once again successful.

Leaving Sorell we headed for Port Arthur. We had  given some thought to doing doing a day trip from Sorell as others had done. Being only 70km away it would save us dragging the van in and back out but there were a few attractions we wanted to do one being a Ghost tour and we didn't relish driving the 70km of winding road back in the dark.

The Port Arthur road was the first real hilly and winding road we had tackled in Tasmania with the caravan in tow. At one point after tackling what I thought was a steep grade bumpy winding section of road I was begining to wondered if we should have left the van in Sorell. Arriving at the van park we booked in. Being so quiet after the long weekend they gave us a really big site just behind one of the BBQ areas with a high wall which would give us some privacy and act as a wind break. We were only on our site for 5 minutes when another car towing a van pulled up next to us also with WA plates. After talking with them we found they lived in Treendale (almost neighbours) and they were on a 12 month trip around Australia with their 2 school age children. 

Port Arthur penal colony is the main attraction and you can easly spend two days looking around the site just as well they offer you two consecutive days for the price of one ticket. There are many buildings to look through from ruins to fully restored. There is copious quantity material to read about the history of the settlement and the people who lived there.  From the ports wharf area there is a boat tour which takes you out for a 20 minute ride around the harbour which during the 1800's was the only way in or out as roads had not been built at that time. You can do additional tours to the Island of the Dead and Port Puer costing $50.00 each which the boat drops people off during the harbour cruise.

Port Arthur was built to incarcerate repeat offenders who after deportation from the motherland still continued to offend in Australia. There were 3 broad classes of people who lived at Port Arthur, Military, free civilians and convicts. Punishment was particularly cruel at Port Arthur as it was the belief that you need to break the offenders spirit to rehabilitate them. Originally flogging with a whip was a form of punishment to control the prisoners until they realised that some prisoners wore surviving a flogging as a badge of honour giving them a higher level status amongst the prison community. The warders then changed tack and decided that complete isolation was a better form of punishment which was much more feared by the prisoners. Not all prisoners turned out bad many were able to learn to live within the system, making a living by learning a trade or skill and eventually earning their freedom.

The next evening we were booked in for the ghost tour. We had a sumptious 2 course pre tour dinner at the resturaunt before attending the tour. The ghost tour takes you through a number of buildings including to old separate prison, into the cellar under the doctors house (where he supposedly carried out clandestine autopsies) and the old bipartisan chapel. There were lots of "ghost stories" told by our guide as we wandered through each of the building. I don't really think anybody was frightened (a bit hard to get scared in a big group) but it was good fun.

The next day we toured a few of the areas outside of Port Arthur which meant we did a little back tracking but it is easier to get into and out of a lot of the tour spots without the caravan in tow especially if you take a wrong turn. We have previously done a 60 point turn with the caravan on but it's not a lot of fun. The dogline which is North of Port Arthur was across a section of land called Eagle Hawk Neck. One of the reason why Port Arthur was chosen is that it is connected to the rest of Tasmania by a strip of land only 100 metres wide. Across the middle of this strip of land several very vicious dogs were tied up were used to discourage any convicts who might try to escape by land. An interesting fact is if they did get past the dogs there really was nowhere to go as at that time that part of Tasmania was so isolated.

Close by are some natural coastline attractions one called the Tasman Arch another Devils Kitchen and the other was the blowhole. Tasman Arch is a natural bridge formed after part of the roof of a cave collapsed. Devils Kitchen is a similar formation except the whole roof collapsed leaving a grove into the coastline.

Returning to the park the next day we packed up and aftr re-hitching the van we headed back towards the North. We decided to overnight at Sorell once again where we could refuel the car and restock the Larder before heading North up the east coast towards the famous Bay of Fires near St Helens.