From the Tasmanian Devil Wildlife Park (see previous post) we headed to Port Arthur. The site itself covers many acres and has over 30 historic buildings in various states of repair/ruin. Some are just the outlines of where the buildings once stood, some have been restored or kept standing, others have faded into history all together.
Nice panoramic of Port Arthur from the water
I was infatuated with the colors and swirls of the bricks
The Chapel
After the 45 minute walking tour we took the harbor cruise that was included with our admission fee. The boat circles the Isle of the Dead and pulls alongside of Point Puer where a boys penal station was built and run for about 15 years. The idea was to keep the young offenders from becoming old offenders by restricting their contact with the men at Port Arthur. Good idea, bad location since there was no fresh water and the land was terrible for raising even subsistence crops. Water had to be rowed over every day by convicts from the mainland.
We paid a little extra for a 45 minute tour around the Isle of the Dead, so named since it was the cemetery of Port Arthur. Convicts were buried on ½ of the island in unmarked graves while free people (guards, military people and their families) were buried on the other half of the island with stone carved markers. Because the markers were places facing north/south, weather has caused a lot of breakdown in the stones but thankfully a photographic record was made in the 1930’s so the text on most, if not all, is known. The guide did an excellent job of telling the stories of a dozen or so people who were buried there. In fact, Clarice and I thought she was very creepy – the perfect guide for a cemetery!
We spent the next couple of hours wandering the grounds and taking in the many buildings and features of the prison. One aspect that was especially interesting was the Separate Prison – the prison they built for solitary and silent confinement. Each cell had meter thick stone walls and no one was allowed to make a sound, even the guards! They sat in these cells without talking for 23 hours a day. For one hour each day they were “allowed” exercise. I put that in quotes because it was more of a forced exercise. Each convict was hooded (so they could not even see anyone) then taken to a series of larger rooms where they entered, the door was closed, then they removed the hood/cap and were made to walk briskly around the room until the bell rang signaling stop. Then they were taken back to their cells. Even church was solitary! Each prisoner was led under hood/cap to a specially built chapel in the building. They would enter and walk down an assigned isle to their place where they stood for the service. Once in their place, they closed a small door behind them. That way, each “cell” was smaller than an old telephone booth and the only person they could see was the preacher. From there, they were allowed to sing the hymns, often the first time in a week they had heard their own voice. Stories were told of prisoners trying to communicate by singing incorrect words, but if caught was a very serious offence. No wonder the prison saw a dramatic rises in asylum cases!
The "Solitary Chapel" - each convict stood and could only see the preacher!
The Insane Asylum - where the convicts often went after too much time in the Separate Prison
A couple of "convicts"
We spent about 6 hours all told at Port Arthur and then took the extra daylight we had (being summer and so far south) to drive around the rest of the Tasman Peninsula. We did a small hike to an old mine that used convict labor and had several ruins of buildings. Pretty interesting.
By that point we were pretty tired and the day was fast fading so we headed back to Hobart. We stopped in one town to get some food and supplies, ordered pizza delivery from the car, and we delighted to find the pizza dude arriving at our hotel door just ahead of us. What great timing! I moved all our photos to the laptop, we cleaned up and scarfed down the pizza, then we went to bed knowing tomorrow was going to be a LONG day.
