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

Another fine day in Tasmania; how lucky we are. We were parked up and at the Port Arthur Historic Site by about 9.30 am which is the opening time on the brochure but not on the door; we could have been there half an hour earlier. We spent well over an hour completing our tour, today wandering around the Dockyard, where sixteen large decked vessels and around one hundred and fifty small open boats were built during the fifteen years of operation. We wandered about the Governor’s Gardens, reinstated in the early 1990s after over a hundred years of neglect. Today they were full of glorious blooms and we decided the trees must surely look much more stately and beautiful than they did in the convict days even though various Governors’ wives put such a priority on the planning and planting of these lovely areas. Of course you do not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that these same wives never deigned to soil their hands in the planting, or maintenance. They had their own “slaves” on hand for such menial tasks. After pausing to again enjoy the whole peaceful vista, we returned to the introductory museum and completed our reading of the many descriptive panels on offer.

The Governor's Garden

Today I sought out my husband’s pet convict, one of those two hundred male prisoners transported on the convict ship Enchantress in 1833. His was one Ebenezer Brittleman, a sixty four year old gardener from Sheffield, England. He had been convicted in January 1825 for picking pockets and was sentenced to seven years transportation. He was sent to Port Arthur for being drunk and employing a boy to convey spirits into the prison barracks. He was too old to be sent to work in the gangs so was employed at lighter duties around the settlement. For a while he was sent to split shingles which was a job usually reserved for well-behaved ganged convicts.

Chris was disappointed with his man; I think I would have done better to draw his card myself. I thought he sounded more like me that Stephen had.

It was after 11 am by the time we set off across the southern part of the peninsula, to the fishing village of Nubeena, the commercial hub of the region. There we found a decent sized IGA supermarket, a bottle store and a couple of vehicle repair servicemen. The first of these was not really interested in our problem so sent us back up the hill to a tucked away workshop, Sharman’s Auto Electric. Here an auto electrician obviously handles all vehicle repairs even if he prefers the auto electrical side of his trade, or at least that is what we assumed. This very pleasant young man, wearing a ring in one ear, pirate style like our ten year old grandson, was happy to slide under our landcruiser and emerge to assure us there was nothing to worry about. We had heard a knocking sound some days ago; I was certain it was on the roof and sure enough we found the bungee cord around the spade had worn through. We rescued the spade and discarded the cord, but still the knocking persisted and it seems to have become worse over the intervening days and distance. I had visions of the exhaust pipe flapping about ready to drop onto the road, or worse. Even with Mr Sharman’s reassurance, neither of us were entirely satisfied and so the mystery remains. However we did try to put our worries aside for the rest of the day, and continued on over the hill to the north of the peninsula (which I continually think of as an island) to Premaydena where we turned west and out to the Coal Mines Historic Site and to Lime Bay State Reserve.

The Historic Site is not very evident from the road and certainly did not seem to offer an attractive setting for lunch, so we continued to the end of the road and parked up under lovely trees in the Reserve. There is camping available here, just simple toilets and not much else. No doubt it is a busy campsite in the summer holidays, offering a lovely beach and probably excellent fishing. There are walks to take however we were again pressed for time and wandered only a short distance along the shore before turning back to the car and on back to the Coal Mines.

This, like several other sites on the Tasman Peninsula, is all part of the penal operation, although is less known and less visited by tourists, despite the fact it is free. Dotted across the 214 hectare site are over twenty five ruins and dozens of mining features, mostly well labelled, all surrounded by beautiful regenerated bush and a multitude of birdlife. The well-marked paths offer a variety of walks, short and medium and today we did the loop that is supposed to take two hours to complete.

Remants of the Mines accomodation

The mines were developed to limit the colony’s dependence upon costly imported coal from New South Wales and served as a punishment station for men who had committed a serious offence in the colony. They operated from 1830 through to 1901, although in those latter years were no longer serving as a punishment centre. At their busiest, there were almost six hundred prisoners with their jailers and their families living and working at the Mines.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stroll about the area, uphill to the signal station site, around the huge shaft now mostly filled in and down the inclined plane where the coal carriages once ran, along the shoreline where once there were jetties and a commissariat, and through the prison and soldier barrack areas, today only random stands of stone and brick.

Back on the road we travelled east back to Premaydena, then on to Koonya, both with evidence of past civilisation, then came south over the hills on an unsealed road, and back down to Nubeena, this time seeing the shellfish farms laid out along the far shore of the bay. We travelled on around the bay to White Beach where we were very surprised to see so many baches, some quite smart holiday homes and some little more than shacks. It obviously is a popular place over the summer.

Views above Maingon Bay

Then we came on back to Port Arthur but turned south just before reaching the Historic Site and drove on around the shore to Carnarvon where most of the Port Arthur people actually live. We continued south on out to the Southern Ocean at Maingon Bay where the fierce waves beat upon the shore and from where one can see in the distance to the south east, the towering cliffs and columns of Cape Raoul. Here too is the Remarkable Cave, yet another sea cave cut through the sandstone cliffs and offering the tourist who is willing to clamber down the many steps to the bottom, a view through the dolomite and sandstone, out to the sea. Today with the tide out, one could have walked through to the seaside of the tunnel, that is, if one were foolish enough or should I say, lucky enough to not encounter a rogue wave.

 We returned to camp having had an excellent day but only too aware that there were still things we would have liked to include in our exploration, not least of all, a drive over to Fortescue Bay and to have undertaken at least a short part of the walks on offer there. I could say we will leave it for next time, however next time here is not likely to happen. Hopefully the reader can enjoy it in our stead.

Our visiting potoroo

Back at camp, we propped the landcruiser up on our spare yellow plastic ramps, laid a tarpaulin on the ground and both lay under the landcruiser, poking and prodding pieces of machinery, one no wiser than the other, and decided that it did seem, after all, that nothing was likely to drop off tomorrow as we make our way back toward Hobart.

I watched a superb fairy wren gleefully bathe in the pan of water I had left beside our caravan, and then a little while later a potoroo turned up and decided he rather liked wren-flavoured water. A lame green rosella returned for a second helping of cornflakes and then it was time to close up and come inside. Tonight will be colder than the last few nights I think. But we have been so very lucky with the weather.