Tassie tour: Day 1

-- Richmond to Swansea via Port Arthur -- 250km

We're beginning our tour of Tasmania! We will try to see as much as we can in the ten days we have, with the help of our little Hyundai.

We started day one in the quaint town of Richmond with a hearty breakfast and a visit to the old Gaol (jail) house. A small affair by Australian jail standards which was only meant to hold a dozen or so inmates at a time. The records had details of at least one Cowling taking up residence in the jail during its operation between 1835 and 1879, no Huitric were found in the records.

We then drove out onto the Tasman peninsula to visit Port Arthur, nearly an island save for a spot of land about 10 meters across, it was the site of a much bigger penitentiary complex that housed thousands of inmates from Britain and Europe as well as being home to the first British run juvenile detention center. Australia was the go to place to lock up prisoners in the mid 1800s and Tassie was the go to place for the worst offenders as it is even more remote. We learnt that children as young as 9 were sent on boats to Port Arthur for committing a crime of pickpocketing in London!

After all this hard history we enjoyed a lavender ice cream from a lavender farm, we may not try it again, and stoped by some of the coastal walks to take in the stunning and brutal coast line. We also got to test our rain jackets (after 3 months at the bottom of our bag) as the southernly winds brought in some cold rain. As we started back up the coast, to end the day good note, the sun showed up a little and we enjoyed seeing some nice cliffs on our way to Swansea.Read more