21 October 2013 - Port Arthur Holiday Park, Port Arthur, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania

Last night we were treated to further wildlife out our caravan windows: a wallaby and a potoroo grazing and snuffling about the camp, such a delight. A kookaburra sat in the scrubby tree watching this all play out with the patience that only kookaburras have. After dark fell, we took the opportunity to watch three quarters of the DVD about James Cook we purchased at the museum named after that great navigator more than two years ago, and may well watch the last of it tonight. No television has its benefits.

This morning we were not woken to the shrill calls of large birds but the gentle chatter of smaller ones. With lunch packed we headed back to the Port Arthur Historical Site, paid our dues and spent a very full day absorbing the history and beauty of that was once one of the world’s most significant penal settlements. Fortunately the price of the ticket covers two days which one actually needs to take this all in.

Transportation of convicts to the Australia was part of Great Britain’s great social engineering plan; a fact that has to be remembered when one considers the facts of the resulting history.  While horror stories abound, I suspect the success stories of those that came out the other end as trained trade’s people, often now able to read and write where they had not been able to before, and with the resilience to face the adversities that life on the other side of the world offered, are those we should celebrate. But we do not; instead we learn with horror the terrible conditions that were endured and condemn our forbearers. Indeed, I personally can be thankful for the penal system in that it lured two of my grandfathers to this part of the world, one who came as a soldier to guard a convict ship and another who came to join his ex-convict brother to make his fortune in the New World.

Port Arthur began its life as a timber getters’ settlement, staffed by convicts, but came to the attention of Governor Arthur’s as offering an eminently suitable location for a correctional institution. Although convicts had already been engaged as labour here, it was only in 1833 that it became a punishment station for repeat offenders. By 1840 more than two thousand convicts, soldiers and civil staff lived at Port Arthur which by this time had become a major industrial settlement, producing worked stone and bricks to furniture and clothing, boats and ships.

With the end of convict transportation to Van Dieman’s Land in 1853, Port Arthur also became an institution for aging and mentally ill convicts.

An inquiry into the running costs of Port Arthur recommended its closure and in June 1871 the Tasmanian Government took over control of the prison from the British Government. It continued to serve as a prison as there was no room in Hobart to house the remaining inmates. Finally in 1877 the remaining convicts were transferred to facilities in Hobart and Launceston and the staff and stores removed.

After the penal settlement closed, Port Arthur was divided into town lots and sold. The new township adopted the name Carnarvon in 1884 in an attempt to lose its shameful convict associations. The Commandant’s house was converted into the Carnarvon Hotel in the 1880s. the Commandant’s offices and the Junior Medical Officer’s House were just some of the buildings that became tourist accommodation.

In the 1880s and 1890s a series of fires took decision about what should be saved or destroyed out of everyone’s hands. The site was left in ruins. The 1895 bushfire destroyed buildings including the Asylum, the Separate Prison, the Paupers Mess, the Hospital, the Parsonage and Government Cottage. Then in 1897, the fire that swept through the town on News Eve, succeeded destroying many remaining buildings including the Penitentiary and Commandants Offices.

Protection of some of the ruins began as early as 1916 with the establishment of the Port Arthur Scenic Reserve, Australia’s first gazetted historic site. By the 1970s the site came under the management of National Parks & Wildlife Service and a major redevelopment and conservation project was conducted from 1979 through to 1986.

Remains of Port Arthur's Church

On arrival, one is given a lanyard with a coloured ticket, yellow in our case denoting the Bronze Pass, and a playing card to match up with a convict individual who becomes one’s own identity through the whole experience should you desire. My nemesis was one Stephen Ashton, brickmaker by trade, aged twenty two hailing from Hull in England, convicted in March 1828 for burglary, transported for life. He was sent to Port Arthur for absconding from the prisoners’ barracks and remaining illegally at large until apprehended by Constable Hurst. He tried to abscond from Port Arthur with several of his friends. They managed to get as far as Wedge bay on the Tasman Peninsula, where they were caught and brought back to the settlement. As punishment, they were all stripped to the waist and given fifty lashes, all beaten in the presence of their mates in the hope that this would make the other prisoners think twice about escaping. They were then ordered to work in leg irons for a year. Now this is a true story and one day Stephen’s descendants might be lucky (or unlucky) enough to draw the same card and find out about their delinquent relative.

Port Arthur came into the headlines far more recently for a more modern and unsavoury reason than its long known history. In April 1996 a lone crazed gunman let loose in a way that has become all too familiar in news of America rather than this corner of the world, and massacred thirty five innocent bystanders. The culprit, who will remain unnamed because to do otherwise would be seem to celebrate his memory, was subsequently tried, found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for life with no eligibility for parole. The crime which was reported around the world caused widespread shock, as these incidents do.

Today the café which was central to this incident is but a deserted shell and a memorial garden is left to celebrate the lives of those who fell victim of this senseless slaughter. Needless to say, little is made mention of this event other than in passing as did our guide today.

At a distance, almost like a grand English estate

After spending some time in one of the museums and acquainting ourselves with Stephen and Chris’s convict identity, we joined Guide Graham and several dozen other tourists for a forty minute introductory tour, followed by a twenty minute boat tour around the bay, the Isle of the Dead where around 1100 people were buried between 1833 and 1877 and Point Puer Boy’s Prison which operated from 1834 to 1849 as the first purpose built juvenile reformatory in the British Empire catering for those aged nine to seventeen.

Graham told us that we were fortunate to have come today because on Wednesday a cruise ship was expected to anchor in the deep port, discharging about two and a half thousand passengers into the Heritage Site. This I would not like at all!

We spent the afternoon wandering about the site, in and out of buildings, restored or ruins, reading the many interpretative panels, watching films and listening to audio stories. Despite the horrible history of the place, the sun and sea enhanced this delightfully serene spot. Seagulls and swifts swooped and dived about the ruined towers and high walls and the whole spectacle was just lovely, enhanced by the excellent weather. Alas we were unable to see everything we wanted and will have to return tomorrow morning. I should be glad of this however I already had a full day planned. It will be a busy day indeed.