Sarah Island

Sarah Island, or Settlement Island as it was officially known during the Penal Settlement 1822-33 and sometimes referred to as Headquarters Island was established in the remote reaches of Macquarie Harbour in 1821. It was used as a penal settlement where convicts laboured under the hardest conditions in the cold,damp rainforest felling Huon Pines for boat building. Of all possible sites to choose from Macquarie Harbour would have been the most windswept and barren places but also the most secure. As Sarah Island could not produce good food , malnutrition, dysentery and scurvy were often rampant among the convict population.For many the burdens of Sarah Island were intolerable. Particularly during the early phase of the settlement, some deliberately committed murder on order to be sent to the gallows and escape from the tortured lives they led.
One of the best known prisons to escape from Sarah Island was Matthew Brady.
in June 1824 Brady and 14 companions seized a boat and sailed to the Derwent Estuary before taking to the bush and for the next two years Brady lead one of the most notorious of Tasmanian's bushranger gangs. There are many other wild stories of those that made an attempt to escape, Alexander Pearce upon capture confessed to cannibalism of others whom had made the escape with him. There is the well known story of the ship that never sailed, Australia's longest running play which tells of the dramatic and hilarious true story of the last great escape from Sarah Island.
Today Sarah Island is a well established tourists destination, many ruins, not as well preserved as those of Port Arthur , can be seen, including those of solitary cells which were completely dark inside with barely enough room to lie down. However unlike it's history, today Sarah Island holds a natural beauty that makes its difficult to grasp the incredible misery it once held.Read more