....you won't be surprised to learn that the ghost tour wasn't scary.....

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Hi lovely readers - here's our last Taz blog.

So, there are two things that this blog is about:
1) Visit to the Tasman Peninsula (bottom right as you look at the map) to experience the Port Arthur historical penal site (convicts, not mens' bits).
2) Trip up the top of Mount Wellington on a sunny but windy day.

In keeping with our recent tradition of being Blog Lazy, we're mostly doing photos and keeping it tidy on the story front, but we have a couple of things to say up front.

Port Arthur is famous for two reasons. Firstly, it ws an early settled convict outpost, which was famed for either completely reforming through trade skills, or totally breaking the men who were sent there, from the UK. There were various methods of punishment for the worst prisoners such as making them walk upstairs all day to turn a wheel which operated a mill, and another one was to put them in the "Seperate Prison, where the men would be sentenced to solitary confinement (even in church) and were not allowed to show their face, or utter a single word for the duration of their time spent in there (sometimes many years). There is another reason that Port Arthur is known to the world - a tragic and disturbing massacre where a crazed gunman went on a killing spree resulting in the death of 35 people. Here is an article about the horrendous events on the 28th April 1996. http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial/bryant/

We did a night time ghost tour by lantern while we were in Port Arthur. Given our Edinburgh connection and the various ghosty walks we've done before, we should have known better than to expect much in the way of ''frights''. However, we thought we'd give it a go anyway as there isn't much else to do at night in Port Arthur (except go to the pub, but we can do that anywhere, anytime these days). In fairness it ws OK, but the guy who ran the tour could definately benefit from some presetation skills training, or maybe even some acting lessons coz he was a bit crap. LARISSA: Do you think you could get Doug to sort him out, as we think D would have given a far superior delivery?

The day we drove the 22kms to the top of Mount Wellington, it was really sunny, bright and fresh - we could see for miles & miles from the 1270 metre peak, however the wind would have cut you in two! There was snow at the top - just little patches of it, not drifts, but it's the first snow we've seen for almost a year - awww! How nostaligic. Alan kept saying that we won't know whats hit us when we get back to Scotland, but Shaz likes wearing her thermals and jumpers and thinks it's nice to be cosy.

Anyway - hope you like the piccies - the next ones you see from us will be from Christchurch in New Zealand, where we head tomorrow morning at 9:30am!

See ya's,
Al & Shaz. xx

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Photos

Dreaded Infirmary
The site hospital, destroyed by fire in the late 1800s. The prisoners would go in here with a sore head or a scratch and come out a week later in a box - so poor was the hygene, and disease was rife.

Eggs on the ghost tour
It wasn't scary enough so we had a bit of a carry on. Nothing to do with the pints of Cascade we'd consumed beforehand.

This is a freaky one...
This is the 'dissecting table' in the surgeon general's house on the site at Port Arthur. This is where they would peform autopsies (spelling?). There's a big chimney thing at one end of the table where the convicts would ave to push ash down. The ash would fall onto the floor with the purpose of absorbing all the blood and bodily fluids spurting and dripping from the dissection table....yuksville! The skull you can see is the skull of a small mammal which was left over when 'Most Haunted' TV programme came to film here. They just leave it on the table to make things even more eerie.

Another hospital view
We read some horror stories about operations that were performed here. Apparently one prisoner had tried to escape, but was shot in the shoulder in the process. He was taken to the infirmary, and operated on without anaesthetic. The surgeon took 10 MINUTES to amputate his arm, and then sealed the bloody area by searing it with a boiling hot frying pan which he'd been heating on an open fire. Can you imagine the pain? Sends shivers up our spines!

The Parsonage
Apparently the 3rd most haunted building in Aus (don't ask us about the first 2 most haunted - we don't know). This is where the priests lived and on the ghost tour we heard about the many sightings of some big mean looking dead Reverand or another who comes and stands at the windows and shakes his fists or something equally menacing. Are you feared yet????

The Church
Roof burned off in a fire about 120 yrs ago. The church ground was never consecrated so it's not really holy land. It's a little bit spooky though.

Eggs pretend to be scared in the church grounds.
This is us looking as serious as we could muster. The pixelisation of this photo makes us look like we've got really bad skin too. If you enlarge we look much nicer.

Alan tries to look like a vampire / monster.
How completely 'not frightening' is Alan?

Most excellent Jukebox
In the bar at the Comfort Inn where we stayed in Port Arthur. We had lots of fun playing pool (badly) and selecting tunes before heading out to the ghost tour. We had a fab selection of Roxy Music, Kylie, David Bowie, ZZ Top, The Animals, J Giles Band, Electric Six, The Pogues & Jet among others. Nearly as good as having the i-pod back and working (which we don't).

Diagon Alley
This is a hole in the wall of the main prison building, but it's on here because Shaz thinks it looks like the bricks moving apart to reveal Diagon Alley in Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone.

Prison Windows
Eggs attempt an arty shot.

Port Arthur historical site
This is taken from the harbour where we went on a half hour cruise round the bay.

Inside the Seperate Prison
This was the prison building where the men were not allowed to talk. It was constantly in total silence, as even the guards did not speak unless an emergency occured.

Church in the Seperate Prison
The prisoners had to be ushered in one at a time so that they wouldn't see each other. Once inside, they each had their own booth that they would have to stand in, with their caps pulled down over their faces the whole time. Talk about segregation! Although you had to do really bad things to get sent in here in the first place.

Shaz in the jail.
Sentenced to 10 cream buns, 2 lamb birryanis and a plate of chips!

This one's for Alec.
As you said we don't take enough photos of things through archways and doorways - will this one do?

Comments

[Steven_RW]

No other ppl?
I missed this blog when it came out and just read it now. What I do notice with the pictures is the lack of other people. It often looks like you two are the only people on the planet. Is it really that quiet in most of places you are at? Cheers! RW

[Eggs on Legs]

Dearth of peeps
Hi Steven - nice to hear from you - you must have been allowed a three minute break from doing flash reports to grab some time to write some comments, no? Re people - I know what you mean - sometimes we do it on purpose, waiting for folk to get out of the way before we snap. Lots of places we've visited have herds of tourists nashing around quickly so we try to avoid getting them in the frame. However, if we are on a street or market or cafe or something which has natural pedestrian population then that's a different story. Its more 'real'. Some places are however really quiet. Western Australia was especially so, and many of the beaches we visit are often practically empty. Bye for now, Shaz :-)