Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula

All the Facebook groups and blogs relating to travelling around Australia long-term talk about the first six weeks being the hardest as you adjust to the new lifestyle on the road, and learn how to live in each other’s pockets. Having now been through it I think that’s probably true, added on top of that, that we were both completely exhausted after the months of prep to get out the door, on top of work and school and, it took at least six weeks for us to start to feel well-rested again.

It may have been a coincidence but the six-week mark also was when we finally encountered some nice weather after weeks of rain and sometimes bitterly cold conditions. It’s amazing what a bit of sunshine and warmth can do to make life a bit easier.

Anyway, it was in that context of just having hit that mark (around-about) that we visited Port Arthur, peeling off the layers and digging out the sunscreen for the first time this trip.

Port Arthur is around 1.5 hrs drive from Brook and Vanessa’s place (our current home) in Seven Mile Beach, and with a ticket that covered two days, we lined up to make the trip out and back twice. Not that we were bothered about that, but it did make for a couple of massive days out and about.

We started our day there with the free tour included in the ticket price, and Andrew, our Californian guide was very knowledgeable about the politics, history and geography around why Port Arthur came to be the significant penal colony that it was. Both the kids were used in his demonstrations to show that back in those days kids didn’t get to be kids. Hamish, at eight, could have been doing 12hr+ days in a factory, and Heidi, at nine, might have found herself in the mines as a “donkey”, pulling carts full of rocks.

After the tour, we were free to wander around and through the buildings which were many and varied, including lovely old houses, prison cells, guard towers, the hospital, church and gardens. The ticket price also includes a boat tour on the bay out to Point Puer, where boys were incarcerated, and Isle of the Dead where over 1,000 convicts and settlers who died at Port Arthur are buried.

Putting the sad history aside, the whole site is quite beautiful, set in a natural harbour that is deeper than Sydney Harbour. I imagine it blows a gale there and is pretty miserable a lot of the time, but for us, it was sunny and lovely.

We were pretty knackered by about 4:30pm on day one so decided to leave the remaining section that we hadn’t seen for day two.

On day two we spent about two hours wandering around to see the areas we hadn’t seen, then walked up to the lookout to have our picnic lunch. After this, we drove about 10 minutes down to an area of national park where there is the Maingon blowhole (a one-hour return walk along the clifftop through the wildflowers) and the Remarkable caves. Because of the good weather, the blowhole wasn’t blowing, but it was a nice walk out there all the same.

After that we meandered back up the coast to look at a few other notable landmarks such as the Tasman Arch and another (non-blowing) blowhole.  We also stopped at the Tesselated Pavement which is a very cool natural phenomenon in the rocks on the beach where they look like tiles have been laid out. We had a fun time walking all over them looking at all the creatures too. The whole area was quite interesting, and we feel like we had two pretty good days out and about in the area.

I have to mention the oyster tour we did at Barilla Bay a couple of days later. We’ve now had oysters in a few places (St Marys, Freycinet, Bruny Island) and like all those, the ones here were pretty delicious. The tour wasn’t too long (45 mins or so) and told us all sorts of interesting things about how oysters are grown. We also got to taste some ginger beer (which was how I got the kids over the line – no way they were interested in an oyster tour), and found out all about their candied abalone business, where people seemingly are happy to pay astronomical prices for fresh abalone, and even more for dried. No free tastings on the tour of the abalone for some reason? 

Looking at the forecast, the window of good weather was fast-closing, so to make the most of it, we headed out on Saturday to the Houn Show, via Holly’s (Brook and Vanessa’s youngest) rowing regatta in the Houn River. The show was absolutely packed (watch this space to find out if it was a Covid super spreader event), but we had a great time watching the wood chopping, equestrian and animal judging, as well as seeing all the other animals and stuff that goes along with an agricultural show (tractors in all shapes and sizes). They did have showbags and a sideshow alley, but at around $20+ for a showbag and $10 for a ride we steered our poor deprived kids away from all that and just concentrated on the animals and competitions. They seemed ok with that (or they’re just used to it) and we all had a good day out.

As predicted, the weather has since turned and we’re now planning a couple of days of working and schooling until this latest rain band (predicted to cause yet more flooding on the mainland) passes through. Hopefully before Thursday night, as we’re heading out for the much-anticipated Crowded House concert!