A day on the Tasman Peninsula

There seem to be LOTS of public holidays in Tasmania, particularly at the beginning of the year (but, hey, I’m NOT complaining!). Monday, March 14, was Eight Hours Day, our equivalent to Labour Day. So Mom and I decided to spend $195 each and do one of Rob Pennicott’s award-winning wilderness cruises and set out for Tasman Island.

We caught the bus from downtown Hobart. Our driver, Phil, was full of stories as we headed down to the Tasman Peninsula.

We stopped for morning tea at Stewarts Bay Lodge before picking up more passengers and one of our guides (Ben) and meeting our other guide (Damien) and the boat at Eaglehawk Neck.

We were kitted out in bright orange ponchos and offered homeopathic seasickness tablets made from ginger. Damien teased us that they were free now, but were $100 each if we needed them partway through. I think pretty much everyone took him up on his free offer.

Ben

Damien

Daredevils were invited to sit in front – with seatbelts – and those who were less brave and/or who had back problems could stay closer to the rear. Mom and I sat in the middle.

The coastline is rugged in the extreme. Huge columns of dolerite jut 300 metres high right out of the sea. They told us that people climb them for fun.

Mom

Me

We passed a huge disturbance in the water: hundreds of seabirds, including sea eagles and even an albatross, were having their own fish frenzy.

Ben and Damien took turns gently nosing the boat into and out of caves with spectacular clear blue water. Before Christmas I had viewed the coastline from above when we visited Tasman’s Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen. Now I got to see them from below. 

We passed a few lonely rock islands, the Lanterns and the Hippolyte – lonely but dangerous: the latter was the site of shipwrecks in 1883 and 1915.

As we crossed the last stretch of water to Tasman Island, the water was noticeably rougher (but the ginger tablets did their job!). 

The island was inhabited by a lighthouse keeper until 1977 when the light (like so many others around the world's coastlines) became automated. The only way up – for goods, people, and animals – was by a cable pulley system, now rusted. The staging area and building still stand, though are definitely worse for wear. You can see the remains of a very steep track up which everything was carried to the plateau. Now Friends of Tasman Island come by helicopter to maintain the lighthouse, cottages, and weather station. 

The largest inhabitants are the mammoth seals basking on the rocks – whose warm, cloying smell you can catch the proverbial mile away.

Ben and Damien told us about the feral cat eradication program to which Rob Pennicott has donated $100,000 from adventure cruise ticket sales. (Cats, who had been brought to the island as pets, had decimated the bird population, particularly the fairy prion.) Begun in 2010, the aerial-baiting program has now been declared successful: no more cats. They made a big deal of thanking us – the customers – for supporting this important ecological endeavour.

After the cruise we hopped on the bus to Port Arthur Historic Site, one of Tasmania’s infamous penal colonies, which institutionalized the hardest criminals from Great Britain and Ireland, as well as Australian re-offenders, from 1833 to 1877. Because the peninsula is almost an island, joined only by a narrow isthmus called Eaglehawk Neck and patrolled by half-starved dogs called “The Dog Line,” it was thought to be escape-proof – though a few, like the notorious bush ranger Martin Cash, managed to get away – twice. The second time, in 1842, he went on to wreak havoc around Tasmania.

The site’s interactive interpretation is very well done – you receive a playing card when you go in, which links you to a particular prisoner whose story you can follow, giving you greater insight into what it must have felt like to be there. 

A cruise boat takes you around the harbour so you can get a better sense of how isolated Port Arthur is. You can be dropped off on the Isle of the Dead, which was the prison’s burial ground (1,646 convicts are estimated to have been buried there), and Point Puer ("puer" is Latin for "child"), which was where boys as young as nine were incarcerated and “reformed.” One of Pete's ancestors was a "Point Puer boy."

Point Puer

Isle of the Dead

In the gift shop I bought a deck of playing cards and a copy of Marcus Clark’s For the Term of His Natural Life, a novel published in 1874 about life in the penal colony.

It was a gorgeous sunny day as Mom and I toured the remains of the buildings, including "the Canadian Cottage."

It was hard to imagine life in what many describe as a hell-hole - rain and cold would make it easier, I’m sure.

But I didn’t need rain and cold to feel the tragedy of the massacre that happened April 28, 1996, when Martin Bryant went on a killing spree at Port Arthur. He shot and killed 35 people and wounded 21 more. It’s one of those days - like the first moon walk or when JFK was shot - where Tasmanians remember what they were doing when they heard the news. The remains of the Broad Arrow Café where 20 were gunned down - now just brick walls surrounded by shrubs – is a stark reminder of the horror. A still "pool of peace" and several plaques memorialize those who were killed.

It was a memorable day – from the sublime to the tragic and almost back again: the chocolate we bought at the Federation Chocolate Shop on the way home could never come close to being an antidote.