GFE Stumpes: Tasman Peninsula I (9/13/2025)

Saturday, September 13, 2025 (continued)

Franklin Square in Hobart (KSS)

At 9:30 we were to meet our private guide at the Tasmanian Travel & Information Centre, but he was waiting for us at the hotel! The Centre made calls, and Nathan eventually found us. Apparently because of the Salamanca Market (which we saw on our own), there are no tours to the Tasman Peninsula on Saturday. Because yesterday was a travel day, this was our only day for a tour and we had to pay for a private tour. But it also meant we could tell our driver to take us anywhere!

We would cross the Tasman Bridge (1960-1964, at which
time it was the longest prestressed concrete bridge in
Australia) over the River Derwent; in 1975, a bulk ore
carrier ship collided with two of the bridge piers, causing
the collapse of three sections of the bridge deck; the bridge
was reopened in 1977 and the ore carrier wreck remains below

Stopped in the colonial Georgian town of Richmond to
see Australia's oldest surviving large stone arch bridge
(1823-1825, built by convicts)

Richmond Bridge as seen from the road

The bridge crosses Coal River

North side of the bridge

Nathan and Kent at the east end of the bridge

St Luke's Anglican Church (1834-1836, by
John Lee Archer in Georgian Gothic style) is
the oldest intact Anglican in Australia

St John's Roman Catholic Church (1836-1837,
by Henry Edmund Goodrich in Gothic
Revival style) is oldest continuously-
functioning Catholic church in the country (KSS)

Interior of St John's Church

Did we like oysters? Stopped at Blue Lagoon Oysters

We purchased a dozen Tassie Gold Oysters,
harvested from the oyster farm just behind the shop

Shared the oysters then and there, and
they were, indeed, plump and creamy

Oyster farm racks

Tasman National Park Lookout over Pirate's Bay to see dolerite spires at Cape Huay
on the horizon, then closer is Fossil Island and then a long crescent beach on the right

Kent confronts a mastiff at the Dog Line; for prisoners
thinking to escape at a narrow (30 m/98' wide) isthmus
connecting Tasman and Forestier Peninsulas, a line of
nine dogs would start barking, bringing out the guards
from the nearby Officers' Quarters to apprehend them

Carpobrotus rossii/Pigface, a native
Succulent herb

Pomaderris apetala/Common Dogwood: so Nathan points
at this plant and calls it "dogwood," before smiling and
saying "because of its bark"; well, we thought it was a joke,
only to find out later that it really is a dogwood!

When we reached Port Arthur, the penal
settlement, we had lunch of local
specialties: a sausage roll and scallop pie...

...and a hearty tomato soup with roll

A model of Port Arthur, a surviving example of large-scale
convict transportation and colonial expansion through
convict labour; from 1833-1877 Port Arthur was the
destination for the most hardened transported convicts
(i.e., transported by ship from England to Australia)

When we entered, we were given a playing
card with the name of an actual convict (KSS)

Using the picture, we could find
information on "our" convict; Kent
had Denis Dogherty of Ireland who
was convicted of desertion at age 18,
and sentenced to 14 years, yet he ended
up at Port Arthur 20 years later (KSS)

Tamiko's card of William Collins

Collins was also from Ireland and was
sent to Port Arthur for stealing a waistcoat
and pair of trousers at age 34, and was
sentenced for life

View toward what became the Penitentiary (1845 as a
flour mill, then converted in 1854-1857); the
settlement covered about 40 hectares/100 acres (KSS)

A cell in the penitentiary (KSS)

Guard Tower (1835-1836, built by juvenile convicts from Point Puer across Port Arthur Bay)

Looking down at the penitentiary from the guard tower
with Point Arthur Bay on the right (KSS)

Smith O'Brien's Cottage (c 1845 as a stable,
but made a cottage for a political prisoner for
his part in the 1848 Irish Rebellion)

Ruins of the Hospital (1841-1842, by convict architect
Henry Laing) that was burned by bushfires (KSS)

An earthen dam and reservoir

Ruins of the Paupers Complex (1863-1864) where ex-convicts
who had no support or employment could live (KSS)

Site of the former Asylum (1868) being the last
significant building erected at Port Arthur before the
settlement's closure, highlighting evolving, albeit
rudimentary, approaches to mental health and social care;
fires destroyed the original asylum, but new residents
built themselves a community center (now a museum)

Prison uniforms: the multi-color "magpie" uniforms
were for the lowest class prisoners (KSS)

Playing cards

Separate Prison (1849-1851) represented a shift
from physical punishment to psychological reform
through isolation and silence, including wearing
hoods with eye slits when outside the cell

Separate Prison cell door with an opening to
pass a chalkboard for written communication

Separate Prison cell with a hammock bed that
was stored away during the day

Cell shelf with rolled up hammock (KSS)

These cells had a system for the prisoner
to alert the guard by pushing a button and
the cell number would swing out

Several doors led to the Punishment Cell
in which one would see and hear nothing;
Nathan suggested we stand in the dark, but
when he closed the door, a light remained lit