As we've mentioned separately to many of you in emails, our recent trip to Tasmania was the last big adventure we'll be undertaking here in Australia. We have a couple of short trips planned, including an excursion to Canberra this coming weekend so that David can attend one of his conventions. And we'll be stopping over in New Zealand (the North Island this time) on the way home. But our big Aussie excursions are over now, and we ended with a good trip.

Tasmania is the smallest of the Australian states. It's also the southernmost of the states, which means here that it's the coldest. And it's an island, separated from the Australian mainland by the icy, rough waters of Bass Strait, and surrounded by the Tasman Sea and the Southern Ocean. Located between the fortieth and fiftieth latitudinal lines, the island is subject to the high winds and stormy weather of the "Roarin' Forties," particularly during the Southern Hemisphere's winter months. Frequent rains, raw temperatures, constant gales -- it's no wonder this was the place where Australia's worst convicts, the ones who were too unsavoury for life on the mainland (which, of course, began as a penal colony), were sent to be punished. Originally it was known as Van Dieman's Land, and according to histories of Australia, it was the most feared penal colony in the entire British Empire. It was also the site of the most shameful episodes in Australia's dark history of Aboriginal relations -- within less than a century of European settlement of the island, Tasmania's entire Aboriginal population had either been killed or forcibly relocated off their ancestral lands. In 1856, transportation of prisoners to Van Dieman's Land was ended and the island was renamed Tamania after Abel Tasman, a Dutch explorer who first discovered the island two hundred years earlier.

(Below: Hobart as seen from our hotel in Battery Point. That's the Hobart Bridge spanning across the right side of the picture.)

The state's capital city, Hobart, is located on the island's southeastern shore, and this is where we began our holiday. We planned our trip for a Friday night arrival so that we could go to the famous (well, famous in Australia) Salamanca Market, a huge open air market in the city's historic Battery Point waterfront area. Salamanca Place is lined by old (1830s) warehouse buildings that have been restored and converted into shops, galleries, and restaurants. Every Saturday, hundreds of craftspeople and retailers set up tents on the street and sell their wares. Clothes, souvenirs, woodcarving, gemstones, photography, art, toys, candies, fresh-baked breads and pastries, gourmet foods, even wines and mead -- we found it all during our day at the Market. And while we didn't buy everything we saw, it wasn't for lack of trying....

(Below, Left: Salamanca Place, set up with the tents of Salamanca Market. Right: St. David's Park which is just west of Salamanca Place. The park was once a cemetary -- the first in Hobart actually -- but was reclaimed to be made into a park. There are walls in part of the park into which the old headstones have been imbedded. And this memorial is one of several left standing in the park. Nice park, but that's just a little creepy if you ask me....)

After leaving the market, we walked through other parts of Hobart's historic district, which includes some beautiful old homes and narrow roads reminiscent of small towns in rural England. We also went to a truly excellent ice cream shop called Sticky Fingers (for the second time actually -- it was the first place we visited after our arrival late on Friday). We've been in several of Australia's larger cities at this point -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Wollongong of course. In many ways, Hobart is the nicest. Certainly the city planners there did the best job of preserving the city's historic flavour (architecturally speaking) while making it modern and accessible. It has some lovely parks and squares, and some beautiful old buildings, while at the same time supporting a modern, bustling central business district.

(Below: Bundled up atop the Tahune Forest Air Walk.)

On Sunday, we drove south from the city, to the forestry region of the southeast coast. Specifically, we went to see the Tahune Forest Air Walk, basically a 600 meter long catwalk that winds through the canopy of a beautiful tract of coastal gum forest. The height of the catwalk ranges from 25 to 45 metres (80-145 feet) and offers beautiful views of the forest and the Huon (pronounced HEW-on) River valley. It was an interesting walk, not only because of the views, but also because this land is under the authority of the Tasmanian equivalent of our National Forest Service (as opposed to the National Park Service) -- an agency dedicated to use of the forests, not preservation. The forests there, at least those they allow tourists to see, appear to be well managed. But upon entering the forest reserve, one is bombarded continuously with what can only be described as propaganda highlighting the agency's forward looking management of the woodlands, and asking visitors to decide why we can't have all the paper and wood products we need if the end result is forests as lovely as this one. The irony in all of this is that the Tahune reserve also includes a Huon Pine Walk. Huon Pines are among the oldest living things on earth. Some of them live to be more than 3,000 years old, although these ancient giants are almost impossible to find anymore. They have been logged nearly to extinction and most of the remaining old growth stands of these wonderful trees can only be found on Tasmania's west coast (we didn't get there on this visit -- it's a raw, wet, difficult place to visit in late fall and winter). The Huon Pine trail in Tahune Forest Reserve has several information signs up that give all sorts of information about the Huon Pine and its life cycle. But there aren't any impressive specimens of the trees there -- the oldest we saw were less than fifty years old. The ancient big trees that once grew here were all cut down years ago.

(Below: A view of the storm we encountered at Mount Wellington. Moments later we drove the rest of the way to the top of the mountain and found ourselves in the middle of a blizzard.)

After leaving Tahune, we wandered farther down the coast a bit and then started back toward Hobart, following a different route that took us there by way of Mount Wellington, a craggy, forty-one hundred foot peak that overlooks the city. It's not the tallest mountain in Tasmania by a long shot, but it does offer fine views of the city. Also, we have a weather website we go to quite often to get our weather forecasts, and it always lists extremes for Australia -- wettest spot, windiest spot, etc. The hottest spot jumps around quite a bit. Sometimes it's up in the deserts of the Red Centre, other times it's farther north in the tropics near Darwin or Cairns. But the coldest spot, more often than not, is Mount Wellington. And sure enough, when we got there, it was windy and freezing cold. It even snowed on us -- the first snow we've experienced since coming to Australia.

(Below left: the old church at Port Arthur. This church was reserved for the administrators of the penal colony and their families. The convicts were not allowed inside. Below right: the ruins of the old prison hospital, which was renowned for its unsanitary conditions and poor doctors. Chances were if you went in, you wouldn't come out alive. Farther below left: Three buildings at Port Arthur -- in the foreground, the ruins of the quarters provided for those convicts who were too old to be used as labourers. Beyond that is the Lunatic Asylum, one of the newer buildings on the prison grounds, which was built after so many prisoners were driven insane by their stints in solitary confinement. Beyond that are the ruins of the Separate Prison, where new transportees spent their first year in Port Arthur, learning the system and, basically, having their spirits broken like so much dry kindling.)

We left Hobart the next day, and made our way to the Port Arthur Historic Site on the Tasman Peninsula. Port Arthur was the site of one of the most infamous of Australia's many prisons, and the prison was abandoned in shame and embarrassment after it was closed, its buildings abandoned to the ravages of the climate and the depredations of looters. By the time those in power finally realized the historical value of the site, many of the structures were barely standing and in ruins. Still, enough remained for a fine historical park, and in fact, the sometimes shattered skeletons of these old buildings have a ghostly look and actually enhance the mystique of the place. We reached the Historic Park by mid-morning, and spent over five hours there, taking a walking tour of the grounds, exploring many of the old buildings and ruins on our own, and also taking a brief boat cruise on the harbour that included a close pass by the Isle of the Dead, where many of the prison staff and its convicts were buried, the latter in unmarked graves. Nancy had read about Port Arthur in Robert Hughes' history of Australia, The Fatal Shore, and it was the place in Tasmania that she most wanted to see. We worried though that the girls would be bored there. Far from it. The site was set up to be kid-friendly, despite its dark history and the sometimes disturbing tales that we encountered during our tour and as we explored on our own. For instance, upon entering the site, each of us was given a playing card (literally -- David got the king of hearts, Nancy the four of hearts, etc.) and using our card in the visitor centre display area, each of us was able to follow the story of a single convict from the time of his arrival (and yes, the vast majority of them were male) to the time of his departure or death. The kids' cards directed them to children. Children as young as nine years-old could be transported to the penal colony, though most who were sent were at least twelve. David's convict had a particularly strange story. His name was William Moore and he was accused of stealing two pence worth of tobacco. He was acquitted. That's right, acquitted, cleared of all charges. But the authorities thought him a man of unsavoury character, so they sent him to Port Arthur anyway!

The Port Arthur prison, which operated from 1830 to 1877, was a place rife with contraditions. On the one hand it was surprisingly progressive. All the men who served there were taught a trade, so that if ever they left the prison and returned to Australian society, they could be productive members of the community. The children who served time there were also taught a trade and they were kept in a facility separate from the adult convicts (Point Peur), making Port Arthur one of the first prisons in the world to separate minors from adults. On the other hand, the place was absolutely brutal to those who would not conform to the rules. Prisoners were routinely punished by being placed in lightless, solitary cells for as long as two weeks at a time. So many of them went insane that a lunatic asylum had to be built on the grounds. Port Arthur was chosen as the location for the prison because it was so inaccessible and, thus, so immune to successful escapes. The small peninsula on which it was placed was connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, only 100 metres wide, called Eaglehawk Neck. Vicious guard dogs were chained to posts on the isthmus in a line (called, appropriately enough, the dog-line), their chains kept just long enough so that animals adjacent to one another could eat from the same bowl, but could not tear each other apart. And just in case the frigid water temperatures weren't enough to keep prisoners from trying to swim to freedom, the guards circulated rumours that the waters around the isthmus were infested with sharks.

(A rare public sighting of Australia's newest rap star, Erinem.)

(Below right: Freycinet National Park -- the view from Cape Tourville Lighthouse toward the entrance to Wineglass Bay.)

From Port Arthur, we drove north up Tasmania's east coast to Freycinet National Park. Freycinet is located on a small peninsula, and it includes some of the most dramatic and beautiful scenery on Tassie's eastern shore. The most famous spot in the park is a bowl shaped inlet called Wineglass Bay, which is included each year in Outside magazine's survey of the world's ten most beautiful beaches. Our first evening in the park, we took a couple of short hikes at various places along the eastern shore, including one at the Cape Tourville Lighthouse, where we were treated to some gorgeous lighting as low clouds moved over the rocky shoreline a few rain squalls passed by. The next morning, we hiked to Wineglass Bay, across the peninsula to Hazards Beach (named for the four 300 meter high granite cliffs dominate the coastline here), and back to the trailhead -- a total of eleven kilometres (7.2 miles). It was a beautiful walk, though the day began with a bit of rain, which made our views of Wineglass Bay from the top of the trail a bit less spectacular than might have been. We returned to the cabin we were staying in at the park, and Nancy and the girls had hot chocolate. David, in his neverending quest to see as many Aussie birds as possible, went back out to the lighthouse, and was rewarded with a great view of two species of albatross (he'd never seen either before) and several dolphins feeding on schools of fish.

(Below Clockwise from Top: 1) The view of Wineglass Bay from the top of the trail leading down to the beach. 2) The beach at Wineglass Bay. 3) Hazards Beach, on the west (Great Oyster Bay) side of Freycinet National Park. 4) Alex stylin' on the beach in her surfer duds.)

We left Freycinet the following morning and drove west into the central part of the island to Cradle Mountain-Lake Saint Clair National Park. We visited the southern portion of the park -- the Lake Saint Clair portion, as it were. We saw some beautiful mountain scenery and, on the morning after our arrival, took a boat ride north along the lake, were dropped off at a spot called Narcissus Bay, and then hiked seven kilometres back to another boat dock where we were picked up and returned to the southern end of the park. It was a very cold morning and, at first, overcast and foggy. In fact, the boat captain had to navigate back and forth along the north shore of the lake for several minutes until he finally spotted the entrance to the bay. The fog afforded us some lovely and strange vistas across the lake, and after it finally lifted, leaving us with a clear, cool day, we were amazed by the stillness of the lake water and the spectacular reflections of the mountains.

(Below, Clockwise from top: Four views of Lake Saint Clair. 1) The sun starts to break through the early morning mist that hangs over the water. 2) The peaks of the central Tasmanian mountains reflected in the waters after the mist burned off. I believe that big mountain in the middle is Mount Gould. 3) Mount Ida reflected in the waters. 4) Sunset over Mount Olympus at the south end of the lake.)

From Lake Saint Clair, we drove back to Hobart by way of Mount Field National Park, a park known for its enormous Swamp Gum trees (some of which have grown to heights above 280 feet) and for its waterfalls, including the well-known and oft-visited Russell Falls. It was raining while we were at the park, and we didn't stay long. But we took a nice hike to the falls and all the aptly named "Big Trees Trail."

(Below: Russell Falls in Mount Field National Park.)

And that was pretty much the end of our trip. We had one last fine seafood meal in Hobart that night, and made yet another pilgrimage to Sticky Fingers. The next day we flew home, leaving behind a hard rain and chilly temperatures, and returning to New South Wales where, ever since, we've had a lot of rain and chilly temperatures. We were lucky that our weather in Tassie wasn't worse than it was. The forecasts we saw before we left all called for steady rains throughout the week. What we actually got was not nearly that bad. The most unpleasant weather days were that last day at Mount Field, and the day we flew out. Yes, it was cold (and the cabin we stayed in at Port Arthur had no heat to speak of), but we weren't kept from doing anything we'd wanted to do, and most days were a mix of sun, clouds, and brief showers, giving us some beautiful skies and several rainbows. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of any day in Tasmania when we didn't see a rainbow. So how bad can that be?

It probably wasn't our favorite trip that we've taken -- that would have to be either the Red Centre or our holiday in New Zealand. Several people told us that it was too bad we'd been to the South Island of New Zealand before we went to Tassie rather than after, because Tassie is very similar to the South Island, but less dramatic. They turned out to be absolutely right -- spot on, as they say here. Still, it was very beautiful. We saw some nice wildlife -- pademelons, wallabies, Brush-Tailed Possums, Long-Nosed Poteroos (rabbit sized marsupials; they kind of look like someone mixed a mouse and a Kangaroo). We also saw lots of birds as well as some dolphins. Freycinet National Park was incredible. Hobart was a terrific city. Port Arthur is often referred to as the most powerful and fascinating historic park in all of Australia, and we could certainly see why. All in all, it was a very nice way to conclude our travels in Oz.

We have less than two months left to our adventure. We'll be leaving Australia on July 19th, just six weeks from now, and then will have twelve more days in New Zealand before we return to the United States. We'll post a couple of entries between now and then. But it's exciting to think that we'll be seeing some of you before long.

So long until next time!