Port Arthur and Mt. Wellington

Port Arthur penal colony. 

 The ruins of the barracks.

The church were they tried to rehabilitate the convicts.

 The Tasman National Park coastline.

The Tasman Bridge in Hobart.

Hobart from the summit.

Tuesday, March 29^th.

I got up and found out they had a buffet continental breakfast so I indulged before retracing my drive from last night towards Port Arthur. The drive was pretty and took about an hour and a half to get there. Port Arthur Historic Site is recognized by the World Heritage Foundation. It is a penal station that was established in 1830 as a timber getting camp, using convict labour to produce sawn logs for government projects. At the time Tasmania was called Van Diemen's Land. It was used from the 1830's until it closed in 1877. This colony was for repeated offenders, or escapees from other colonies. There was a large barracks for men and on an island off shore there was one for boys as young as nine. This was the beginning of juvenile reform in Australia.

I had a 40 minute guided walking tour and a half hour cruise around the lovely harbour. It was an interesting place with lot of buildings and ruins to explore, including the barracks, the prison and the large church, but I couldn't help feeling that it would not have been as nice when it was operating. Now it is very pretty and clean. I'm sure it was a horrible place in its day. They tried to rehabilitate the criminals who were mostly thieves and put them to work. There was a brick making factory, logging, boat building, farming and other shops.

After the cruise I decided to leave and drive back to Hobart. As the highway came over a hill it gave an incredible view of the Tasman Bridge. I spent a half hour driving around and trying to find the way up a pedestrian walkway over the highway from which to take a photo of it. In the process I found another small summit that gave a good view of the city. Finally I found the pathway and walked up. It was a great view. I had hoped to go to the Bruny Islands south of Hobart, but there was not enough time, so I decided to drive up Mt Wellington. Apparently Charles Darwin climbed up here well before there was a road!

What an incredible road up! This was another Depression era make work project that used unemployed WWI soldiers to construct a 10 kilometres long road up a very steep mountain. The summit above the tree line is quite large and flat and offers incredible views of Hobart and the surroundings. Really spectacular. I wandered around for a bit and then talked to two Australian men who told me some of the things I could see including the bridge I had photographed, and how an ore carrying ship had crashed into it one night in 1973 and caused part of the span to collapse! Then they had no bridge to connect the two sides of the city except for one about 20 kms away. When they rebuilt the bridge they built around the wreckage of the ship that sank right there with its cargo and the span of the bridge on top of it. The whole thing is below the water.

Then I drove back down and began to look for a hotel. I was tired and determined to find one earlier than the last couple of nights, but after a short look without luck, I decided to go back to the Travel Lodge. I knew where it was, that it was good and affordable and had a breakfast. I got there about seven, and spent the evening typing, watching the news and reading.

Drove a total of 266 kms today.