Historic Richmond

---

We came to Hobart at the perfect time... not! Our only full day here and it poured with rain for all of it, and the weather struggled to get over 15 degrees Celsius at its warmest. The warmth the rest of the country seems to be getting makes me jealous. What made it even harder was the comfortable bed we woke up in this morning, and that I was suffering from neck and back pain.

Breakfast was in the restaurant this morning, and although pricey, offered a wide selection of cooked food, cold meats and cheeses, as well as your typical cereals, fruit, yoghurt and toast. Considering we're on holiday, we paid for the breakfast, though when we book hotels ourselves, we usually select the breakfast option when booking our room!

By 9, we were ready to start our day, though we weren't entirely sure what to do or where to go. Our tour was at 1pm, meaning we had four hours to entertain ourselves. Our first choice was to go and find where the bus would pick us up from, which was easier than we expected. The main departure point in Hobart for most tours is the Brooke St Pier, which was only a ten minute walk from our hotel. After we located that, we continued a little further down to Salamanca.

Salamanca is a popular place, filled with cafes, shops and the old town charm a lot of Hobart possesses. Here, the buildings are made mostly of stone, and in the past, were used by the convicts. On Saturdays, I've heard it's bustling with people who come to experience the Salamanca markets, but obviously we won't have the opportunity based on our schedules.

We'd only been out for 45 minutes or so before we were forced to go back. Not much was open, but the worst part was that I felt really unwell. Not as if I had a stomach bug or anything, but due to severe neck and pack pain I'd woken with. Usually, ibuprofen or paracetamol can help, but that was back in the hotel.

Once back, we stayed there for some time until the ibuprofen kicked in. After and hour and a bit, I was feeling better, so we decided to go back to the Elizabeth St Mall, where we spent even more money on items! Although overcast and below 10 degrees, the skies had remained fairly dry for the morning. The mall is partly inside and partly outside, and the places we went were all outside, so we were completely unaware that during the hour we spent there, it had begun to rain.

Unprepared and not wearing appropriate clothing to protect us, it was a very uncomfortable and cold walk back to our hotel. We had about half an hour to wait before we needed to walk back to the pier to hop on our bus to Richmond. Although not hopeful it would, we were lucky to find that the rain had once again stopped so we were able to stay dry on our way to the pickup point.

Arriving at the pier, we realised we weren't actually sure where the bus would be, or what type of bus we were looking for. Our tour was booked through Experience Tasmania, though none of the buses or none of the signs mentioned the company at all. So we went into the building nearby where a lot of tour companies were selling tickets and approached a stall that said 'Greyline'. All we intended to do was find out where the meeting point for our company was, but I'd barely shown the woman the ticket before she took it from me and said she'd check us in. It was then we realised that 'Greyline' and Experience Tasmania were one in the same and the bus was a 'Greyline' bus.

Now knowing where we needed to be, we headed back outside and waited about 7 minutes for the bus to get here and got on straight away. It was good timing, too, for almost immediately after we boarded it once again started to rain.

The bus was due to leave at 1:10, so we had about a 10 minute wait before it left Hobart for the small historic town of Richmond.

Richmond is a small town about 30 minutes north-east of Hobart. It was one of the very first settlements by settlers as they searched for new land beyond Hobart and is home to some of the oldest structures in Australia still standing today. As we wound through wet, country lanes, our tour guide Phil, filled us with a lot of information about, not only Richmond, but Tasmania itself. He was also prone to throwing in the odd joke about certain places we passed.

The route was an enjoyable, yet very bumpy ride. We passed many vineyards and b&bs along the way, as well as very old Georgian-era buildings.

Upon entering Richmond, Phil took us over a bridge which was built by convicts in 1823. It is the oldest bridge in Australia and is still used by traffic today. Only in the past few years has there been talk to limit to weight that can cross, as just under 200 years old is it starting to show some cracks.

After crossing the bridge, he then drove us past a catholic church. St John's, like the bridge, is one of (or the - I can't quite remember) oldest catholic church in Australia. This is of a stunning, old design and sits on top of a hill that you can see for some distance.

Our next place - and the place we'd disembark - was out the front of Richmond gaol. This, like other structures in the town, was Australia's first ever jail. It was used for male and female convicts that were considered to be serious criminals. The most amazing aspect about this is that the gaol has only been preserved over the years, not restored, meaning it has been kept in its original state for almost 200 years. It's a $10 entry fee to explore the gaol, discounted at 50% as we were with a tour company, but you can enter almost every section of the prison and see the conditions both the gaol keepers and the prisoners endured during their time here.

The rooms were only small, sleeping men and women, sometimes in the same quarters due to overflow. Originally, the jailers and the keepers were forced to live right beside the prisoners until additional living quarters for them were added around 10 years later.

The prison also had solitary confinement for men and women, which acted as a punishment for behaviours such as refusing to work, absconding, etc. Here, they'd only be given bread and water. Their time in the cells with no windows could last between 1 day and around 7, depending on the severity of the offence.

We were unable to enter the gaol-keepers quarters, though this seemed to be due to work being done there, not that it had always been closed. However, I am not certain on this.

Next, we headed a short walk down to quite a large lolly shop, recommended by our tour guide. It had lollies, ice-cream and coffee inside. Seeing ice-cream flavours we struggled to get elsewhere, we bought that, along with some lollies.

After that, we went down to the bridge to get a closer look. There's a little path below that you can walk down to and view the bridge from below. Here, we were stampeded by lots of ducks who were obviously unafraid of humans and used to being fed by them. They got very close to us, though we had nothing to feed them with.

We then headed a short walk up the hill to the church, which was open. Like the bridge, the church is used today and is right by the catholic primary school. At this stage, school had just finished and the children were leaving as we were approaching. We were able to go into the church to have a little look, which of course has been modernised, but the overall structure is around 200 years old.

We still had some time left, so found a small takeaway shop for lunch and then looked in some gift shops before heading back to the bus. Our bus also had people who were going on a tour to a wildlife sanctuary about 20 minutes away. While we and another couple had booked only for the Richmond part, the majority had booked for a tour that included an hour in Richmond and the rest of their time at the sanctuary. So, we travelled along some more country lanes where we reached a small town called Brighton. This, apparently, is a good town for people to buy their first home, as it offers house and land packages quite cheaply.

Once everyone from the sanctuary boarded, we were on our way back to Hobart, through the north and into peak hour traffic. Phil was nice enough to drop us back at our hotel, which was the first stop and we entered the nice warmth of our hotel room.

For dinner, we decided to try to casino as we'd heard a buffet was there. It was only a short trip by taxi, and although the buffet was good, probably not worth the $35 each it cost us to eat there. We spent a short time actually in the casino before we headed back to our hotel once more, cold and exhausted from another enjoyable day.

Tomorrow, we are off to Cradle Mountain for two nights, which we've heard is lovely. Our days in Hobart were numbered and we definitely didn't get to see everything it has to offer, but it has been nice. Just very, very cold.

---

Photos

Window inscriptions
These are from the convicts who occupies the room

Oldest bridge in Australia
Built in 1823