After breakfast on our balcony, we did a bit of shopping and exploring Ballarat before heading off to the ferry to Tasmania. We arrived at the ferry terminal early- hoping to understand the process of boarding before the crowds started arriving. The ferry runs twice a day during peak months- but trying to get any accurate information was close to impossible. It was a true 3 Stooges check-in. We had time to get a bit of food and wine before queuing for the ferry. The queue started at 6:30 pm and we actually started to board at 7:30- after a two part screening process. The rule is no alcohol can be taken on board the boat. But, since we had our own private cabin, we decided to ignore the rule and take some wine and cheese in for a little private party. The ship took off at 9:00 and we did a quick tour of the boat before bed. The decks were packed with people settling in for their overnight trip. We were so grateful for our cabin after seeing the hoards of people sitting upright trying to get some sleep while others were hitting the bar, drinking $5 beers and watching TV.
We had some wine and cheese and slept soundly until the wakeup call at 6;25 a.m. Since the ferry didn’t get to the dock until 10:00 am, we decided that it was a huge plot to get people to spend money on their over-priced breakfasts.
After the Tasmanian set of checkpoints, we were off for destinations unknown. We stopped at the (guidebook) famous, Ashgrove Farm Cheese, for some local cheese tasting. The road network in Tasmania was designed for maximum twists and lots of road kill.
We had some wine and cheese and slept soundly until the wakeup call at 6;25 a.m. Since the ferry didn’t get to the dock until 10:00 am, we decided that it was a huge plot to get people to spend money on their over-priced breakfasts.
After the Tasmanian set of checkpoints, we were off for destinations unknown. We stopped at the (guidebook) famous, Ashgrove Farm Cheese, for some local cheese tasting. The road network in Tasmania was designed for maximum twists and lots of road kill. We finally made it to the little town of Bicheno and found a motel on the beach and a great little French restaurant, Travella. Back at the motel, we had a few more drinks and talked with a couple from Sydney—she was a bird lover, he was a surfer.
On Saturday morning, we were up and heading down the coast towards Hobart. Another day of twisting roads—with names like “Break Me Neck Hill”. We arrived in Hobart and stopped at the Visitors Center to check on rooms. We walked into a room packed with people and heard the staff telling people that “there are no rooms left in Hobart”. In horror, we listened to people being booked into rooms miles away. We got to the front of the queue and were trying to work through options for a nearby town when one of the girls came over with a last minute cancellation at a hotel smack in the middle of town. We grabbed the $165/night serviced apartment and wondered if we shouldn’t try our luck at the lottery that day.
Saturday is the famous Salamanca Market in Hobart, so we dropped our bags and walked over to the market. For all of the hype, it was just a typical market-with a bit more tie-dye, candles and lavender than most. We grabbed a cab and asked him to take us to a local bar- and spent a few hours at Shippey’s at Battery Point, one of the oldest bars in the city. For dinner, we headed to the waterfront and had fish and chips on one of the boats docked by the pier.
With only a week in Tasmania, we were on a tight schedule to try to see it all. Sunday was the Tasman Peninsula. You couldn’t visit Tasmania without seeing the famous Tasmanian Devil. The species is now endangered- they’re being killed off by a mouth virus- so most of the remaining healthy devils are in captivity. They are truly bizarre creatures. Our first exposure to them was the sounds emanating from their pit. It’s a noise like nothing you’ve ever heard. At first we thought that the two devils in the pit were males staking out their turf. They would chase each other, barring their teeth and making this awful noise. It turns out that they were a male and female- in the pit to mate. Evidently, the male had been humping the female for three solid days and she wasn’t going to take it anymore. Then, when they were fed (fresh wombat), the male took the meat and wouldn’t let the female get close to him. The sound of crunching bones was awful—not one to waste anything, the devil eats everything- fur, skin and bones. 
On Saturday morning, we were up and heading down the coast towards Hobart. Another day of twisting roads—with names like “Break Me Neck Hill”. We arrived in Hobart and stopped at the Visitors Center to check on rooms. We walked into a room packed with people and heard the staff telling people that “there are no rooms left in Hobart”. In horror, we listened to people being booked into rooms miles away. We got to the front of the queue and were trying to work through options for a nearby town when one of the girls came over with a last minute cancellation at a hotel smack in the middle of town. We grabbed the $165/night serviced apartment and wondered if we shouldn’t try our luck at the lottery that day.
Saturday is the famous Salamanca Market in Hobart, so we dropped our bags and walked over to the market. For all of the hype, it was just a typical market-with a bit more tie-dye, candles and lavender than most. We grabbed a cab and asked him to take us to a local bar- and spent a few hours at Shippey’s at Battery Point, one of the oldest bars in the city. For dinner, we headed to the waterfront and had fish and chips on one of the boats docked by the pier.
With only a week in Tasmania, we were on a tight schedule to try to see it all. Sunday was the Tasman Peninsula. You couldn’t visit Tasmania without seeing the famous Tasmanian Devil. The species is now endangered- they’re being killed off by a mouth virus- so most of the remaining healthy devils are in captivity. They are truly bizarre creatures. Our first exposure to them was the sounds emanating from their pit. It’s a noise like nothing you’ve ever heard. At first we thought that the two devils in the pit were males staking out their turf. They would chase each other, barring their teeth and making this awful noise. It turns out that they were a male and female- in the pit to mate. Evidently, the male had been humping the female for three solid days and she wasn’t going to take it anymore. Then, when they were fed (fresh wombat), the male took the meat and wouldn’t let the female get close to him. The sound of crunching bones was awful—not one to waste anything, the devil eats everything- fur, skin and bones. 
We had the chance to walk along with one of the workers on her morning feeding routine and got first hand info on all of the other animals in the sanctuary—the frog faced bird, the wallabies, and kangaroos. We even got to feed the wallabies (and see some humping kangaroos).
Port Arthur was next on the agenda and we took a tour of the site. It was particularly interesting after reading Jack Weatherford’s book. In 1830, the Tasman Peninsula was chosen as the place for a penitentiary for the worst convicts. The peninsula was a natural penitentiary as it was connected to the mainland by a strip of land less than 100 metres wide. Between 1830 and 1877 (when the penal colony was closed), some 30,000 male convicts passed through here – most never left the island.
Rather than using corporal punishment, the prison was designed under the “silent” or “separate” system. The inmates lived in complete silence. Each inmate had a number- no name- sewn into his gray uniform. They could not speak to anyone- not to each other or to the guards.
The guards used sign language and even patrolled the hallways in slippers to muffle the sound. The idea was that the silence would provide the prisoners with the opportunity to reflect on their crimes. If they were allowed out of their cells, they had to wear a cloth cap and mask over their fact to insure anonymity. They were allowed to leave their cells for one hour a day- solitary exercise facing a blank wall. Five times a week they attended church services. Even in the church, they were placed in separate booths that completely hid the inmate-except for his face which could only look forward toward the pulpit.
If the inmates violated the rules, he was put into a “dark and dumb” cell….complete darkness, with walls three feet thick. No sound or light entered the room. They received daily food rations of bread and water – but they were delivered at random hours to prevent the inmate from using the arrival of meals to monitor his stay. If the inmate was particularly bad, he had to wear leg irons attached to a chain in the wall. The guards would pull on the chain, raising the inmate off the floor and raised him in the air, leaving him to hang upside down in the darkness for hours.
This “Model Prison” made the inmates go mad. To handle the insane inmates, a lunatic asylum was built on the grounds.
On the way back to Hobart, we took the road through Richmond, or “Biddlyville”—a cute town of brick buildings, antique shops and biddlies.
A new term: Shipies- used to describe women who are “mutton dressed up as lamb”
The next morning, it was off to Queenstown. Once again, there were no straight roads and bikers traveling on them at 100 mph. The final descent into Queenstown was dramatic- with deep, eroded gullies and denuded hills – from the years of mining operations. We found a room at the Pub/hotel- Empire Hotel. The car park was filled with Japanese bikes. It turns out that we were sharing the hotel with a girl’s biker club. We had dinner in the hotel and watched as they streamed into the dining room- all dressed up for the Academy Awards.
We had quite a drive the following day- from Queenstown back to Devonport for our return ferry. We went through the mountain towns of Zeehan and Tullah, stopped at the Lactos Cheese Factory and stopped by for a photo stop with the big penguin- in Penguin. We found a little Indian restaurant in Devonport for dinner before our boarding and then it was off again at 9:00 pm for our trip back to Melbourne.
Rather than using corporal punishment, the prison was designed under the “silent” or “separate” system. The inmates lived in complete silence. Each inmate had a number- no name- sewn into his gray uniform. They could not speak to anyone- not to each other or to the guards.
The guards used sign language and even patrolled the hallways in slippers to muffle the sound. The idea was that the silence would provide the prisoners with the opportunity to reflect on their crimes. If they were allowed out of their cells, they had to wear a cloth cap and mask over their fact to insure anonymity. They were allowed to leave their cells for one hour a day- solitary exercise facing a blank wall. Five times a week they attended church services. Even in the church, they were placed in separate booths that completely hid the inmate-except for his face which could only look forward toward the pulpit.If the inmates violated the rules, he was put into a “dark and dumb” cell….complete darkness, with walls three feet thick. No sound or light entered the room. They received daily food rations of bread and water – but they were delivered at random hours to prevent the inmate from using the arrival of meals to monitor his stay. If the inmate was particularly bad, he had to wear leg irons attached to a chain in the wall. The guards would pull on the chain, raising the inmate off the floor and raised him in the air, leaving him to hang upside down in the darkness for hours.
This “Model Prison” made the inmates go mad. To handle the insane inmates, a lunatic asylum was built on the grounds.
On the way back to Hobart, we took the road through Richmond, or “Biddlyville”—a cute town of brick buildings, antique shops and biddlies.
A new term: Shipies- used to describe women who are “mutton dressed up as lamb”
The next morning, it was off to Queenstown. Once again, there were no straight roads and bikers traveling on them at 100 mph. The final descent into Queenstown was dramatic- with deep, eroded gullies and denuded hills – from the years of mining operations. We found a room at the Pub/hotel- Empire Hotel. The car park was filled with Japanese bikes. It turns out that we were sharing the hotel with a girl’s biker club. We had dinner in the hotel and watched as they streamed into the dining room- all dressed up for the Academy Awards.
We had quite a drive the following day- from Queenstown back to Devonport for our return ferry. We went through the mountain towns of Zeehan and Tullah, stopped at the Lactos Cheese Factory and stopped by for a photo stop with the big penguin- in Penguin. We found a little Indian restaurant in Devonport for dinner before our boarding and then it was off again at 9:00 pm for our trip back to Melbourne.
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