Tasman Peninsula is known for its high cliffs reaching up to 300m high. Port Arthur is located on this peninsula. In 1830 Lieutenant Governor George Arthur chose the Tasman Peninsula to confine prisoners who had committed further crimes in the colony. Since the peninsula is connected to the mainland by only a very thin strip of land called Eaglehawk Neck, he thought it made a “natural penitentiary.” To be sure, he had ferocious guard dogs chained across the isthmus. The area became quite an area for convict run industries such as timber milling, ship building, coal mining, shoemaking, and brick and nail production.
Tasman Peninsula beach
This is some of the hardest rock in the world
Tasman Peninsula
Tasman Peninsula
Tasman Peninsula
Tasman Peninsula
Port Arthur started in 1830 as a timber-getting camp using convict labor. From 1833 it was used as a punishment station for repeat offenders from all the Australian colonies. By 1840 more than 2000 convicts, soldiers, and civil staff lived at Port Arthur. When convict transportation ended in 1853, Port Arthur also became an institution for aging and physically and mental ill convicts. The penal settlement finally closed in 1877 and many of its buildings were dismantled or destroyed by bushfires. For a while the area became a town known as Carnarvon as an attempt to erase the convict past. However, tourists started coming soon after the closing of the penal colony. By the 1920s some convict period buildings had become museums, hotels, and shops and the settlement was once again named Port Arthur.
This building was originally built in 1843 as a flour mill and granary, but when there were too many convicts they converted this building into the penitentiary in 1856. The two lower levels contained 136 cells for “prisoners of bad character.” The top floor had space for 480 better behaved convicts who lived in dormitories with bunk beds. When the penal colony closed, this building was one of the few that were never sold because people though the asking price of £800 was too high. Later, the building was gutted by fire on December 31, 1897.
The commandant’s house.
Isle of the Dead. If a convict died, he was buried here in an unmarked mass grave. Between 1833 and 1877 around 1100 people were buried here. The most common causes of death were accidents and respiratory disease.
On Sunday, April 28th, 1996 a gunman killed 35 people and injured 37 more at and around Port Arthur. Most of the people were in the now closed Broad Arrow Cafe. This memorial is set up next to the skeleton of the cafe. This incident led to much debate and eventually state and federal governments passed new gun control laws that are among the strictest in the world. The man was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 35 life sentences.
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That shot of the boat entering the hole in the cliff, looks like something from Lord of the Rings.
You are looking good.