Tasmania to Tokyo – Sydney / Hobart – Day 6 can be found here.
Some teething pains with our hotel room last night – we couldn’t seem to find out how to turn on only the bathroom lights. We were able to find the ‘night lights’ but even those were too bright, so we elected to navigate solely by the light from our phones. It worked well enough.
We found the bathroom light the next morning, of course. Up at 7 am, as it’s going to be a busy day.
Off for breakfast at the Harbour Lights Cafe:
Photo Credit: Giulio Giampellegrini for Harbour Lights Cafe facebook page
Hot chocolate for the kids this morning – with marshmallows!
We all did some variation of eggs and toast:
Mine with sausage
My wife’s with avocado
Our daughter with scrambled eggs
All very tasty. My son also appreciated that they were willing to do “over hard” for his eggs, which is his preferred way of having them.
Back up to the room to grab our gear for the day, pausing briefly to ask the valet to bring our car around. It’s ready before we are – though that’s not a particularly difficult task because today is laundry day!
Regular readers of our missives will know that laundry is the bane of our existence, and that we are not simply able to have the hotel handle it as the cost would run into hundreds of dollars per day. So instead we must find some way – any way – to do our laundry while on the move.
We really lucked out this time around, as Lala’s Laundromat offers wash and fold services, and will even deliver to downtown Hobart.
We dropped off roughly 50 pounds of laundry, and paid AUD$80 for the privilege – which I consider to be the bargain of the century.
And what would this have cost had we gone through the Tasman? Let’s run the numbers.
Each of us typically goes through a pair of socks ($6), underwear ($6), a t-shirt ($6) and a pair of jeans ($11) per day. Ignoring pyjamas for the sake of simplicity, that still runs to $29 per person per day or roughly AUD$580 total.
Like I said – a bargain.
From here, we took a scenic and twisty drive to Port Arthur, a much-intact 19th century penal settlement.
These are the kinds of roads I would love to tackle with a lightweight sports car.
A 5,000 pound Kia Carnival? Decidedly less so. Particularly since the lane departure warning has the tendency to beep whenever I am even slightly out of alignment with the very narrow lanes – which is frequently. It feels like playing a high-speed game of Operation.
We’re briefly stopped enroute for random drug and alcohol testing, but it’s a simple process – pull over to the side, blow into the breahalyzer, and then we’re back on our way again. Not sure why this isn’t permitted in Ontario – as much as I’m loathe to see police overreach, it like a minimally-invasive way of ensure people aren’t intoxicated while piloting their two-ton death machines.
Ah, well – kudos to the Australian police for running a tight ship.
Google Maps took us off the main highway seemingly at random, but we followed along because, on the rare occasion we have disagreed with Google, we have paid a steep price in terms of traffic delays. So off we go on an even twistier, turnier route.
Port Arthur is roughly 90 minutes away from Hobart. It’s quite busy today – as one might expect on a Friday during school holidays. We end up parking way back in the RV lot, but are perhaps only a five minute walk away. There’s a long line for tickets, but thankfully my wife pre-bought ours yesterday – so no line for us.
We start with lunch at the cafe:
Nothing says “delicious lunch” like having the word “Toilets” front-and-centre in your promotional photography (Photo Credit: Port Arthur website)
I have the salt and pepper squid:
My daughter has the fish and chips:
And my wife and son have ham and cheese sandwiches. (Not pictured.)
All are perfectly adequate.
Not that there was much time to savour our meals – we needed to get down to the boat for the harbour cruise.
Along the way we passed the Canadian cottage, which was pre-fabricated in Canada before it came out this way. Not sure how the economics of that worked but it’s still in fine shape:
My wife had read that it could take as long as 20 minutes to walk down to the dock. In reality, it was less than 10 minutes. The staff had to remind everyone to keep pushing closer toward the boat, as they needed to load roughly 200 people in just a few minutes.
Eventually it was our turn to board, and we set off for a pleasant cruise around the harbour.
I could tell you all about Port Arthur, but smarter folks than I have already written about it – so I will relay their words instead:
“Being banished to Port Arthur in 1837 required a conviction of the court for any number of crimes of the day, including petty crime, juvenile delinquency, political unrest, violence and even fabricated offences thereby sentencing one to a life of hardship as penance and as benefit to the British Empire’s expanding workforce.
Port Arthur was not on anyone’s travel itinerary. Originally a granary and dockyard, Port Arthur held many secrets as inmates suffered various forms of torture and submission. Although education and religious instruction were a focal point, most prisoners were subjected to long hours of isolation combined with harsh and punishing treatment. In fact, even at their mandatory religious services they were seated in separated pews, so as not to encourage additional human contact. What went on here in daily prison life is detailed in the onsite Complex Museum, as well as in the interesting Interpretive Center to help you understand the significance of this Tasmanian site to Australia’s past.
Imagine a place similar to the famed Alcatraz; a foreboding and harsh monster of an incarceration facility for hardened criminals doomed to die in lonely and painful circumstances. Like Alcatraz, Port Arthur had these hardened souls, the maximum security types, the unrepentant ones, the incorrigible, but also, unlike modern day prisons, were the mentally impaired, the political resistors and even the poorly educated unfortunate outcasts enlisted for the benefit of their physical strength in order to provide skilled and unskilled labor for government expansion and monetary gain. Capitalizing on free labor was the main objective and a convict could expect to be at Port Arthur for the term of his natural life. Women were also housed here, separately, but their incarceration came with different rules, routines, harassment and shames. The masters of both their fates lived in luxury of sorts, eating, drinking and otherwise insensitive to the effect and impact which they had on others not so privileged there.”
Source: Tasmania.com
One of the stated goals of Port Arthur was to teach the convicts a trade, shipbuilding chief among them:
However, they were too good at their jobs – the ships they built were being sold for little more than the cost of materials. The shipbuilders at the time complained and the shipbuilding arm of the prison was eventually shut down.
Port Arthur is also known for having the first juvenile detention facility in the British empire, which was located on the opposite shore:
This seems particularly cruel until one considers that previously all inmates – men, women, children – were housed in the same prison together. Practically speaking, however, there was still quite a bit of contact between the juvenile offenders and the adult prisoners.
Round that corner and continue south, and the next landmass you’ll encounter is Antarctica.
There are some high-speed travel options available, for those who prefer it:
We stopped briefly at the Isle of the Dead, which was where deceased convicts were buried – typically without headstones, the view being that they did not merit any kind of memorium. That did eventually change around 1850.
Photo Credit: PortArthur.org.au
We then returned to the dock so that we could explore the rest of the site.
I find the contrast between the coldness of the jail and the warmth and beauty of the surroundings to be particularly striking.
The Commandant’s House, however, is not nearly so cold:
Inside, it’s set up much as it would have appeared when the prison was operating:
There would have been few opportunities for social calls – the network of ‘peers’ was limited to clergy and senior officers. The servants themselves – and even initially the school’s teachers – were all convicts.
The Port Arthur prison was eventually closed due to high costs, a declining prison population, and the end of transportation as a means of dealing with criminal offenders in the United Kingdom.
After the prison was closed, the Commandant’s House was eventually reopened as the Carnarvon Hotel in the late 1800s. It served as a vital foothold for tourism in the region before closing in the 1930s.
One our way out, we passed through Port Arthur’s beautiful gardens:
And then it was time to hop back in the car – we were due in Eaglehawk Neck for a boat tour with Wild Ocean Tasmania:
They’re running a few minutes behind, but that’s fine with us – it gives us a bit more time to enjoy views of the beach.
It also gives the captain, Damian (“Damo”) a chance to set out expectations for the trip – he has jackets for us in case we get cold and we should expect to get splashed along the way. There are a series of front facing seats, though we should not need seatbelts unless we’d prefer to use them.
Two last stragglers join us, and then we board the zodiac and we’re off and away.
The scenery is raw and striking – and this is apparently one of the calmer days. They had five metre swells earlier in the week. I can hardly imagine what that would have been like.
We soon nose into some of the tight, rocky bays:
And come across the first bit of wildife – a kelp gull:
As well as some oyster catchers:
It’s challenging to get photos with the rolling waves:
But Damo keeps on the right side of the line between “fun” and “terrifying”:
We soon come across a colony of black-faced cormorants – can you spot the interloper?
Yup, it’s a heron – looking slightly more composed:
The black-faced cormorants have striking green eyes:
It’s been a pain to try to use my telephoto at this kind of close-in range, but I’m glad I brought it for just this shot.
We also spot a Pacific gull:
And its fledgling:
Then the main event – long nosed fur seals!
They have their flippers out of the water to regulate their temperature:
We also come across a shy albatross:
It’s here that we come across a group of cormorants, gulls, and fur seals all fighting over the same prize – a tight knot of fish that has shaped itself into a ball. There’s no way to record this unfortunately, but it’s a remarkable sight – Damo says it’s the first time he’s seen anything like it.
We spot countless lion’s mane jellyfish:
And even more striking scenery:
And more fur seals:
That little face…
We carry on down the coast, past a diving boat (lucky buggers):
And spot more wildlife still – we are spoiled:
We also spot some Australian fur seals – surprising to see them in such close proximity with the long-nosed fur seals:
It’s a tough life, being a fur seal:
We continue to nose into these little bays as we pass.
A not-so-shy albatross does another fly by:
And then… my camera battery dies! And I didn’t bring a spare. Rookie mistake.
(Or at least I think it’s my camera battery. The full error message is: “Shutter release disabled. Please recharge battery.” So this could refer to a dead battery, or something else entirely…)
Thankfully my wife’s iPhone is still going strong. She gets a few shots of yellow-headed gannets:
Damo notes that he’s only able to get out here perhaps a few times per month – otherwise it’s just too rough.
And then it’s time to head back. Though maybe, Damo says, if we’re very lucky…
There they are. Dolphins…
… And fur seals, all fishing together. Damo thinks they’re after a school of blue mackerel.
And then it’s time to head back to the dock. It was an absolutely fantastic tour by Wild Ocean Tasmania – highly, highly recommended.
It ran just under three hours, so we only allow ourselves a very brief stop at the nearby blowhole:
Before we make the hour-long drive back to Hobart.
That was a full day – off to Saffron Waterfront Indian Restaurant for dinner tonight.
We get the chicken tikka masala:
The butter chicken:
Plus lamb rogan josh and lamb bhuna (not pictured). Very tasty! And exactly what we were in the mood for.
Time for bed! We’re allowing ourselves a brief sleep-in tomorrow, but then we’re off to the famous Salamanca market.