Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia
Port Arthur Historic Site is an old convict settlement, for the repeat offenders from mainland. It’s one of the few preserved convict sights, because it managed to get turned into a tourist destination by ex-convicts, almost right after the prison shut down. Apparently it was cool to come spend the night in a prison cell, trying to imagine what it was like. We stayed in the YHA, which is a mansion at the end of one of the roads leading into Port Arthur. Pretty eary. Since there wasn’t much else going on in this “town”, we decided to start our visit to Port Arthur off with a ghost walk through the grounds. Since I don’t believe in ghosts, I was hoping to be proven wrong, but nothing exciting happened. But we did get some very good story telling from the guide.
We spent the next morning touring the grounds in broad daylight, and then rushed off to the Tasmanian Devil park. Many Australians don’t seem to know as much about these critters as we do (thank you Discovery Channel). In fact some people we’d talked to were telling us that they’ve been extinct for a while. They were apparently confusing them with the Tasmanian Tigers, which have been extinct for 100 years. At the park, we got to feed kangaroos (something all tourists need to do, but once is plenty) , saw sleeping balls of possom, and watched packs of Tasmanian Devils run around curiously, as they awaited food, and then later devoured the bottom half of a wallaby carcasse.
