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Published: April 2nd 2013
Looking over the harbour
Great view from our hotel room!I've been looking forward to coming to Tasmania for ages. Firstly, it gives me boasting rights, as now I've visited every State and every Territory in Australia. Secondly, it seems to me when I'm grocery shopping, that all the good quality produce that I buy seems to come from Tasmania - salmon, beef, lamb, cheese, apples...yum! However my first introduction to Tasmania had more to do with history, specifically Tasmania's history as "Van Diemen's Land", a settlement for convicts and colonists, and it didn't take long to figure out that Tasmania loves its heritage and loves to brag about it.
Mum flew from New Zealand and we met in Hobart, on Good Friday. It was a gorgeous day, which was lucky, as first up on our agenda was a walking tour. Our walking tour started at Cascades Brewery (Australia's oldest brewery!) although our afternoon had nothing to do with beer. We joined "Louisa's Walk", which was part play, part guided walk, centred on a convict woman named Louisa, who was sent to Australia in 1841 for stealing a loaf of bread. She was sentenced to 7 years - sentences came in 7 year chunks only - and her four children
in the UK were left on their own, as the oldest at 14 was deemed old enough to take care of them. Heaven only knows where they ended up. Louisa was sent to Hobart, to a women's prison in the Cascades area, known as "The Factory".
We had a brief reprieve from the convict life for a day, and ventured into town for the famous Salamanca Markets. They run every Saturday, rain or shine, except on Christmas Day. Like all good markets, they offer something for everyone. Lots of delicious fresh food, local arts and crafts, bric-a-brac, as well as some stuff that's just plain weird. We had a couple of hours there, fighting our way through the crowds, and didn't come away empty handed.
For the afternoon we headed to the incredible Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). It's an amazing space. We went in eager and excited, then after several hours emerged exhausted and somewhat dazed, our brains bursting. We'd only seen about a third of the space - it had defeated us. There will have to be a return visit, but we won't have time on this trip sadly.
The next morning we
Cascades brewery, the start of our tour
Oldest brewery in Australia so they tell me headed up to the summit of Mt Wellington. It's 1271 metres high. A mighty climb in our little hire car, and it seemed to take us to a different, much icier, place than Tasmania. I've since been told that it is usually 10 degrees colder than Hobart, which that morning made it a brisk 4 degrees. On top of that there was a chilling wind, which I'm sure dropped it by at least 10 degrees more. I remembered the statue I'd seen down at the docks, commemorating Louis Bernacchi, the first Australian to winter over in Antarctica, and everything fell into place. He must've gone to Antarctica after spending a couple of nights up on Mt Wellington, because surely the South Pole would've been an easier option. The views from there however are spectacular, giving a 360 degree view as far as the eye could see. It was a quick visit, we dodged the children throwing snowballs and raced back to the car to put the heater on full blast.
From there we headed to the historic village off Richmond, but not before sampling some of the Coal Valley Vineyards. First stop was the lovely Frogmore Estate, where we
Louisa's walk
This walking tour / play was great. We are down in the Factory (women's prison) at this point in the story. stopped for lunch. Like everywhere else on a busy Easter weekend, it was fully booked, but we were squeezed in on an outside table. Sitting in the sun and enjoying the peaceful view over the vines and beyond to the water, it was a good choice.
Our real destination was Richmond, a very quaint Georgian village stuffed with gorgeous Georgian houses, old churches, pubs, as well as antique stores and little gift shops. We stayed in a beautiful old brick house, Mrs Currie's House, which was built around 1820 or so and was once upon a time the pub. I knew Mum would love it - it had superfluous cushions on the bed, floral couches, uneven floorboards which creaked when you walked. It was very sweet. The entire town seemed to be historic. We went for a walk to the Richmond Bridge, built in 1823 (Australia's oldest bridge!), St John's Catholic Church, consecrated in 1837 (Australia's oldest Catholic church still in use!), St Luke's Anglican Church, built in 1834 by convict labour and the Richmond Gaol built in 1825. The Gaol was truly creepy, and the little solitary confinement cells which plunged the unlucky inhabitants into pitch black for
24 hours had me longing for sunshine after only a few seconds.
It was a breath of fresh air to rejoin the 21st century and meet up with some fellow travelblogers, the lovely
RENanDREW. They had given me all sorts of great tips for Tasmania, so it was really nice to be able to meet them in person. We were in Richmond, so of course we enjoyed a delicious morning tea in another gorgeous old property.
Our next destination was Port Arthur, which was one of the largest convict settlements in the early 1800s. Its convict history started in the early 1830s and lasted for about 20 years, until the early 1850s. There were a number of reasons to end transportation in 1852, but the final nail in the coffin was the discovery of gold, as it was thought that free passage to the goldfields wasn't much of a disincentive. It was a much larger site than I had ever expected, however it had to be big, as it housed around 1800 convicts at any one time. Add on the officers, policemen, doctors and nurses from the hospital, workers at the law courts, and there could be around
Driving a hard bargain at the markets
Those scarves would come in handy very soon... 2300 people there. The site was massive, and we did a whirlwind tour and saw as much as we could in around 3 hours.
I hadn't realised before I arrived that this wasn't the usual convict prison for those sent straight from the UK, but this was where the career crims where sent - the thieves and murderers in the new colony, the recidivist offenders. This made the last part of our Port Arthur visit even more interesting, as their stories added flavour and ambiance to the Ghost Tour. All of the Ghost Tours depart after dark, so you're almost guaranteed to feel a little spooked before you start. But then the guide begins the ghostly tales and these stories of evil villains and friendly apparitions alike seemed designed to scare the living daylights out of both young and old. We visited Australia's "third most haunted house", although how that was defined was a little unclear. We finished off in the "Separate Prison", an area which even in the daytime gave me the creeps. It was developed in order to experiment on prisoners with new-fangled methods of isolation in order to punish the mind. From what I could gather
Veggie stand at the markets
Check out the purple heirloom carrots, tasted delicious too. it was all about messing with their heads. So as to whether or not ghosts really exist or not, who can say. However when we got back to our B&B for the night and reviewed our pictures for the day, all of the photos my mother took on the ghost tour, and only these photos, were wiped from her camera. So how's that for mystery?
Next up on our Tasmanian tour, we're discovering some Tasmanian nature!
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Jo Trouble
Jo McCarthy
Tassie
Ahhh, Tassie - the memories :-) This was like looking at old photo albums (except Frogmore which I haven't been to). Isn't Richmond a really peaceful place!