Stewarts Bay

We awoke to discover that during the night we had been visited by many Tasmanian long nosed potoroos (a relative to the wallaby). Our groundsheet was covered in about 40 potoroo droppings!! We had not heard them bouncing around but clearly they had been there!
We visited the historic site of the penal colony today - Port Arthur.
Our campground is located on the former farm garden area for the settlement and chained convicts forged and built the pathway between the two. The walk is about 1km and passes along Stewart's Beach.
The Tasman Peninsular started off as a small punishment settlement where convicts were set to work felling and logging the massive blue gum trees that covered the area. Its situation lent itself to expansion into a high security prison, and by 1830, repeat offenders would be relocated to here. A guide advised us that repeat offenders in GB or its colonies would be sent to Australia, to any number of the new penal settlements, thereafter, repeat offenders within Australia would be moved on to Port Arthur. Every building and structure within the establishment was built by convict labour. Some of the workmanship in various buildings is exquisite. Every brick was manufactured on site, and boys from the juvenile prison on Point Puer crafted the stone for the stone built buildings.
We took the short boat tour around the bay to see the location of the first juvenile prison ever built by the British anywhere and the Isle of the Dead where over 1000 people - freemen and convicts are interred.
The site is massive. It closed as a prison in 1877 and fell into disrepair after two major bush fires in the late 19th century.
We enjoyed a rather eccentric talk by an American guide at the church and a more conventional one at the Junior Medics building.
The new prison, called the Separate Prison, based on the Pentonville model, was quite disturbing, as was the asylum next door. Unfortunately, the regime at the new prison often led the inmates to be taken to the asylum, where their condition was managed but not treated. No understanding of mental illness in those days!!
We did not have enough time to see it all, so we resolved to return in the morning. We set off on the convict walk back to base as the site was closing at 5pm. This took us past the boat yard area where convicts built timber boats and ships for the new colony. A very moving day seeing at first hand the conditions these convicts experienced.Read more