Tasmania

I am now 3 trips behind on my blog. So much for my new rule about blogging before leaving on the next trip!! This blog finds me almost ready for my next adventure - the much anticipated visit home after a year and a half. I'm sure I'll get around to writing about it sometime in the next year.

First things first - at Christmas 2011 I visited Tasmania, as I introduced in my previous blog. Tasmania is an island and an Australian state about 150 miles to the south of mainland Australia (although the state also includes hundreds of other smaller islands). The population is a mere 500,000 covering an area about the size of Maine or Portugal. It is named after Abel Tasman, the Dutch explorer who "found" it in 1642, although he originally named it Van Diemen's Land. The first settlers were the British in 1803, mostly convicts and their guards - around 75,000 convicts were transported to Tasmania between 1803 and 1853 (more on this later). It became a state in the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.

I flew from Melbourne into Launceston, Jenni and Don's home - who so kindly were hosting and sharing their Christmas with me. After dropping my bags, we went for a jaunt in the Cataract Gorge, which is a beautiful gorge cut out by the Tamar River, literally steps from downtown Launceston. This was my introduction to Tasmania - very fitting - an effortlessly beautiful place no matter where you look. I should also mention here that I think that Jenni had literally scared the crap out of her sons by joking for several years about setting me up with either of them. Mind you, they had never met me until now and I'm sure they thought I was a weird, psycho, ugly, single crazy American out looking for an Australian husband. Poor guys. Who wants to be set up by their parents, right?!


Cataract Gorge in Launceston

Cataract Gorge in Launceston


Jenni took me on a bit of a tour to the Tamar Valley wine region and Bridestowe Lavender Farm, both beautiful areas. That night, we went to their friends' annual Christmas Eve party. Unfortunately I had a bit too much champagne at the party (nervous drinker!) and was quite hangover for Christmas the next day. My mom would be so proud. I am really so embarrassed, and didn't even want to write about it, but I couldn't just conveniently leave it out and have Jenni or the guys call me on it! I like the grog, it is in my Irish and German blood after all! Although I think we no longer have to worry about Jenni trying to set me up with either of her sons hahahah!! On Boxing Day (26th), we drove to their beach house at Turners Beach (near Devonport), then made our way to Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake for a hike and sightseeing. The area around Cradle Mountain is very beautiful and all the towns have a little something special.


Tamar Valley Wine Region in northern Tasmania



Bridestowe Lavender Estate



Don and Jenni with Mount Roland in the backdrop



Cradle Mountain

The following day we drove to Hobart, which is a pretty drive through little towns and farming communities. Hobart is the most populous city in Tassie, and the big annual event is the "Sydney to Hobart" yacht race which starts on Boxing Day in Sydney Harbour and ends in Hobart on the Derwent River amidst the Food and Wine Festival. This is considered to be the most famous and difficult maxi yacht race in the world and has been going since 1945! Hobart is beautifully situated on the Derwent River with Mount Wellington overlooking it all.


In Hobart where the yachts race in along the
Derwent River for the Sydney to Hobart Race



Amazing view of Hobart from Mount Wellington


We spent the night in Hobart, which was a bit of a walk down memory lane for Don and Jenni as they met in college there. While they went back to Launnie and get on with their lives, I rented a car to explore some places on my own. In about 2 hours I pulled into Port Arthur, on the Tasman Peninsula, one of the most significant and fascinating  places in Australia's settlement history. From 1833 to 1853 it was the destination for criminals (mostly Irish and British), often who were secondary offenders after their arrival at other prisons on mainland Australia. It was the most undesirable punishment. It seems as if Tasmanians don't really want to talk about this history - and there is SO much more to Tassie than Port Arthur - but it is fascinating and the top tourist attraction for a reason. I would assume that most Americans have even heard of Port Arthur, either through movies, or at least learned about it after the sad massacre in 1996.


Port Arthur from the water - this would be the way the prisoners
would have witnessed their new "home" for the first time

If you're curious about the history of Britain sending prisoners to Tasmania - it's a long story but here's a condensed version. London in the 1700's was a bad, bad place with terrible poverty and working hours, even for little kids (just read Charles Dickens). Lots of people were stealing wares and food. For a long time people, even children, were hanged for these crimes. As thinking evolved that execution was too harsh for some crimes, soon there was not enough room for all the criminals. "Transportation" became a common punishment for dealing with this, and 60,000 criminals were sent to the British colonies in America. Once the Revolution took place, Britain had to look elsewhere. Luckily for them, Captain Cook had just returned from his famous voyage that had claimed Australia for the British Empire. The "First Fleet" of 11 ships, with ~775 convicts, arrived in Port Jackson, NSW (now Sydney) on 26 Jan 1788 (after a first fruitless stop at Botany Bay). (January 26 each year is now celebrated as Australia Day.) As the population expanded (of both convicts and free settlers), more prisons were opened in various places, and Port Arthur was opened in 1833. It replaced a prison on the west side of Tasmania, Macquarie Island, which was particularly bad.

Being on the Tasman peninsula, the prison was naturally secure. The 30 meter wide Eaglehawk Neck, the strip of land connecting the peninsula to the rest of Tassie, was fenced, guarded by soldiers, mantraps, and half-starved dogs (even out in the water on little buoys!) Most of the time the convicts didn't even make it that far if they tried to escape. They had arrived in the hull of a boat after many weeks sailing, were disoriented, and surrounded by water and forests. If they tried escaping south, there is NOTHING except freezing water all the way to Antarctica. The only way to the Tasmanian mainland was Eagleneck Hawk to the north - but even if they happened to get "lucky" in their choice of direction, they weren't likely to make it past.


Beautiful Tassie - the bay to the right is one side of Eagleneck Hawk,
a 30 meter strip of land connecting the Tasman Peninsula to the rest of Tasmania


Port Arthur was an example of the "Separate Prison System" which switched its focus from physical to psychological punishments (using food  and solitary confinement rather than lashings, for example). Port Arthur was also where the boys were sent - some as young as 9 - to Point Puer, a separate small island just off the coast of the regular prison (this was the British Empire's first boys' prison). The other island near Point Puer is the "Isle of the Dead" where approx 1,600 bodies are buried. Entire volumes of books have been written about prison reform and the role (positive and detrimental) that Port Arthur played. It is an important part of Tasmanian and Australian history, and the tourist site is actually very well-done in my opinion.

My last few days were spent driving along the east coast and exploring Freycinet National Park, including the gorgeous hike up to the Wineglass Bay lookout. My drive also included Swansea, Bicheno, through amazing soaring mountains and forest-filled valleys, to Scottsdale and back to Launceston. I also got to see a Tasmanian Devil, which are endangered and only exist in Tasmania. Believe me when I say, these are very ugly animals.

I would love to go back and explore more of the west coast. I don't know when I'll fit that in though!!!


Tasmania - the purple line shows my route



Tasmanian Devil

The famed Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park