A Quick Tour of Eastern Tasmania – Day 2

Day 2 started with a tour of Port Arthur, the infamous prison that was used to house many of the convicts from England back in the 19^th century.  It is also the site of Australia’s largest mass shooting where 35 people lost their lives in 1996.

As expected, the grounds are peaceful and a sense of calmness seems to envelop the entire site.  Previously, I had thought that England had sent its worst convicts to be imprisoned at Port Arthur, but I quickly learned that the convicts that were placed here had only committed petty crimes, the majority of them for stealing. It is unimaginable that these men would be placed on a boat for 6 months to travel to Australia just for petty crimes.

The convicts were forced to attend church, regardless of their religious beliefs, and every Sunday, all of the convicts would be required to stand around the church for service.

Repeat offenders or troublemakers would be sent to different sections of the prisons where they had to work on tasks alone.  But it did not mean that they were exempt from attending church services.  A special church with partitions was built so that these prisoners could not have any contact with each other.

I learned so much about this part of Australian history at Port Arthur.  After walking around the site, we enjoyed a quick ferry ride before heading out for lunch.

Lunch on Day 2 was perhaps my favourite meal of the tour.  We went to a lavender farm and was given several amazing meals to choose from.  I went with the “Beef Stack” which is a porterhouse steak with ham, mushrooms and cheese on a zucchini and corn fritter with a red wine sauce.

 

Everyone’s meals looked amazing and afterwards, we got to walk around the beautiful lavender farm to digest our food.

The afternoon was spent driving up the east coast.  We reached Raspins Beach where we got to spend some time enjoying the views of Maria Island, as well as our afternoon tea.  This was the first time that I finally felt warm in Tasmania!

We continued our long drive for another hour and a half before reaching Coles Bay.  We stopped for some breathtaking views of the Bay before heading to our last stop of the day.

The Spiky Bridge was built by convicts to connect Swansea and Little Swanport.  I learned that to this day, no one knows why the spikes were added to the bridge, but it sure makes for quite the sight.

We arrived at our accommodations for the night and our guide Morgan was kind enough to offer to take us to see some fairy penguins later that night.  We had about an hour and a half to rest and have supper, before we were to meet back up at 8pm. 

Immediately after arriving at the site, we saw a baby penguin, which to my surprise was much bigger than I expected.  Apparently the baby penguins are usually bigger than the parents because they just sit around at home all day, waiting for their parents to come back with food.  The parents on the other hand, leave at dawn to hunt and don’t come back until after sunset (so that predators won’t see them in the dark).  This was quite apparent as we saw quite a few penguins coming back, but as soon as they noticed us, they stopped moving.  Our guide asked us to move back and as soon as we did, the penguins began to move again. 

I felt extremely fortunate that we were able to see the penguins that night, as I understand it isn’t always a guaranteed sighting.  Day 2 of the tour was just as great as Day 1 and I couldn’t wait to see what Day 3 had in store for us.