Any Port.....

Wow our second full day in Tasmania, although today there is a little less time to sleep in as we need to be ready to join our tour at 7.30am. But today we don’t have to walk anywhere as we are being picked up at the front door.

Today we are going to Port Arthur but first order of the day was catching the bus. Our ‘hotel’ is on a corner so which corner do we stand on? Needless to say I picked the wrong one, the bus stopped on the other corner and as we walked around the corner Mark seeing we weren’t there headed to where we were, passing us on the way. When I turned back and couldn’t see him, I assumed he headed into the carpark so detoured the back way to there but he had done a ‘blockie’ and was back to where he started. But after a bit of ‘keystone cops’ running finally met up with each other. Since we were the first people on we went off to pick up all the other passengers. As each party joined the group we were all introduced and found out we weren’t the only people from Cairns on the tour, small world.

After picking up the last of our group we headed out of Hobart. Yesterday we were told where the old Hobart Zoo was, today we took the side tour there. The zoo’s famous for the last known Tasmanian Tiger which died in the late 1930’s and shortly after that the zoo closed, nearly 100 years later this prime piece of real estate remains abandoned. We then went past the Governor’s mansion but she was a little too busy to pop out and say hello, there is an election coming.

We crossed over the Tasman Bridge and went to Rosny Hill lookout. From here we could see across the Derwent back to Hobart and learnt all about when the ship, the Lake Illawarra, crashed into the bridge over 40 years ago. I was happy that Mark decided not to tell us, till after we crossed over the bridge, that two of the support pylons were never replaced. He also told us the horror story of how a perfectly good Monaro nearly fell into the river. If you see the images it was a HQ Monaro and an EH Holden that were tettering on the edge of the bridge, too good to throw away I presume.

We then headed down to the beach near Bellerive Oval although none of us were game enough to even put a toe in the water. We left here to head to historic Richmond.

Richmond is the third oldest city in Australia with a myriad of colonial sandstone buildings and Australia’s oldest bridge. But who cares about bridges when you find an antique shop selling classic vinyl records and the famous Richmond Bakery. I had heard so much about the bakery and was not disappointed. I chose a healthy apple slice, it contained fruit and dairy, ok maybe the dairy was a big dollop of cream but it was divine. It is funny how when you step back into time at a historic village time seems to slow down. We wandered around looking at old buildings and churches, the bakery, into antique shops, back to the bakery, souvenir shops and finally just in case I missed something the bakery. All of a sudden our time was almost up in Richmond and we had yet to stop and see the bridge. I suggested to Ann that maybe one more trip to the bakery was warranted but for some strange reason that wasn’t a popular decisions. BTW the bridge is amazing, but so was the bakery. There was one place that seems to be forgotten in all the tourist brochures, it is the Pooseum, not sure what’s on display but fortunately it was closed today.

We stopped at the dog line and the ‘neck’ two ways to keep the convicts from escaping, although if they knew how to swim it would have been a short 50m dash. Although to be honest Port Arthur didn’t seem too bad a place so why would you want to escape. Nice manicured lawns, beautiful buildings, no one allowed to talk to you, meals provided, sounds like an awesome hotel, just lacking a roof and windows. Okay maybe when you were the one making the buildings or hand grinding the wheat for the bread life might not have been as rosy.
We went to the ‘separate prison’ where they tried to break new convicts. No talking, no noise, no eye contact with anyone, today that would be called a reflection day spa and there would be baristas with top buns serving you almond milk lattes.

The size of the site is staggering, even more so when you see the old photos and drawings and realise that there are only a fraction of the buildings remaining. Some were burnt down, some sold and other pillaged for the bricks. But our favourite is one that is currently a private residence. We also did a cruise in the harbour out around the ‘Isle of the dead’. It would have been nice to take the tour of the island but we were on the last cruise of the day so no tour for us.

After a brief visit to the gift shop we headed off to Remarkable Cave, a sea cave in the massive sandstone cliffs that line the coast in this area. What is Remarkable is that I didn’t get a cramp walking back up all the stairs to the bus.
On the trip home Mark put on another video, this time focusing on someone who appeared to me to be a cross between Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin. His work with the Tassie Devils is amazing, might have to visit his sanctuary when we are in Cradle Mountain. I stayed awake the whole trip home but after a full day some people caught some shut eye on the drive home, Ann!

Having an early night as tomorrow we hit MONA and Salamanca Markets.Read more