We took a coach tour to Port Arthur today via a little town, Richmond, on the southeast coast of Tasmania. As we left Hobart, we met a lady on the tour, Shirley, who as it turned out, lives in Nanaimo!
The coach and 8 of us tourist wound its way over the countryside past boutique wineries and grassy fields that were brown dirt a year ago. After 5 years of drought, teh region is recovering and the agricultural areas we saw are quite verdant now. Hobart is home to around 200,000 residents and the average age of Tasmanians is around 65!
Richmond is a quaint little town with many of the buildings dating back to the 1800's and many of the buildings were constructed using convict labor. From there, we travelled to Port Arthur, the site of a British penal colony in teh mid 1800's that housed over 1100 convicted 'criminals' many for life. Crimes included negligence in the death of a master's sheep (7 Years) to stealing a painting (life imprisonment). Needless to say, conditions were pretty gruesome and only two recorded escapes over the 40 year span of active incarceration. The prison was self-sustaining even to the extent of turning a profit through the sale of manufactured shoes, clothes and produce.
Afterwards we returned to Hobart and a great meal at the Drunken Admiral, a quaint 30 year old establishment that served great mussels (Brian) and Thai peanut stir fry veggies with prawns and scallops (Peggy).
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