Big day out

Today was always going to be about seeing how much we could squeeze into it. In the end we managed more than I could have possibly dreamt.

We didn’t stick around the campsite any longer than absolutely necessary. The late night bogans were in no mood to arise early, but there was a steady stream of early boat arrivals so I suspect it was to be a busy day. We followed the nearby campervan out around 8am. Given the limited time we avoided any further investigation of the Coalmines reserve.

First stop was to be Remarkable Cave. I do remember this place from a previous visit. The perfect place for an explore. Alas, not any more. It is now remarkable mostly for the degree to which we now dumb everything down, in the interests of “safety”. Remarkable Cave is now at the end of a set of stairs and well protected by a large fence on an elevated walkway, so to access it properly you need to scale the fence and jump down onto the sand. That is what the surfers do but it did deter us and so my children missed the opportunity to go out through the cave and investigate beyond, which I seem to recall doing last time. A shame really.

So back to Port Arthur, just around the corner. Having done the iconic parts you see in the photos, it was time to do the asylum, paupers home, separate prison, governors house and church. Many of these I don’t recall from last time so the exhibits are developing all of the time. The asylum now contains a small museum of artefacts mostly from the convict era.

The Separate Prison was considered state of the art for its time and was an example of one of the two different models for prisoner reform in vogue at the time. The model came from the USA and was adopted for Pentonville in England and again here at Port Arthur. The ideals were lofty. By complete isolation from one another and as far as possible their captors the inmates would have time to contemplate their sins, learn from their mistakes, and reform their ways by following the teachings of the Church of England, applied liberally from the pulpit of the chapel to the isolated prisoners, even in congregation.

Great plan, if your aim was to in fact turn relatively normal people into psychiatric cases. Fortunately, Port Arthur being a self-sufficient settlement, was able to accommodate the product conveniently right next door in the asylum. If, along the way, you exhibited any kind of recalcitrant resistance, there was always the punishment cell – a room big enough so that you could stand in the middle and reach no walls, but entered through a series of four doorways in stone walls all up metres thick, with no light, so the sensory deprivation was absolute. One prisoner, being a particularly difficult sort, scared the warders with his ways and so he was assigned a cell with direct access to an exercise yard without having to go through the normal prison corridors escorted by staff, and could also go directly to the punishment cell.

The system apparently works so well we have failed to markedly improve on it in 200 years, with the most recent example being rolled out in the maximum security facility at Goulburn in the last few years. At least, by isolation, you avoid the “school for scoundrels” model of criminal vocational education that the communal plan provided. Not sure too much else is good about it though.

So from there it was time to chase back to Hobart to catch the end of the Salamanca markets. Fairly typical I suppose for stall markets, with a Tasmanian feel. Lots of local produce and craft, and busy with people. Closes up around 3pm, so time to move on after sampling some of the local delights.

The Tastes of Tasmania is an annual festival timed to coincide with the end of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race. Conveniently located right next door to Salamanca it was out next port of call. Imagine an Ekka food pavillion but with more stall holders and many more tables to consume the delicacies. They expect 300000 people in a week, so the crowds are up there as well. Not cheap, but something to suit every taste. Seafood, steak, possum, dairy, wine, beer, ciders and sweets all there for the tasting. And when you get food fatigue, lots of street performers and buskers.

Also conveniently located next to the Tastes is Constitution Dock, the end point of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. Having done our research, we collapsed watching a magician followed by a juggling unicyclist dealing as best he could with children running in his performance space. The expected completion for Wild Oats was 8:30, so at 7:30 we wandered over to investigate a vantage point. The distinct feeling of being a salmon swimming upstream was ominous. Wild Oats had in fact finished around 7:10 and was already alongside. Did give us a good view of the presentations though, and of the boat, but we had missed the final sail in.

So we decided to hang around for Loyal, due, we thought, at 9pm, in the last of the light. However, sailboats don’t run to timetables, so in the evening gloom, Loyal came in somewhat nearer 10pm. We could hear the sails being dropped but did not get a close look. I imagine it is no fun crashing somebody else’s party late so it appeared they may have been anchoring in the bay to commiserate. In any event, we gave up just as the predicted weather change came through and so we had a rather damp and tired trudge back through town in search of the car. Home late and tired around 11:30.