Tasmania East Coast – Day Five

Still unwell but improving, no more sore ears and throat. I slept reasonably well and had dry toast for breakfast.
I meet the others in the dining room where they tell me about the fabulous dinner I missed!
We take Tanya and John to the people running a sea adventure, weirdly they rescue wild animals too so we get a chance to see a baby wombat up close and personal. It follows the woman who is its surrogate mother about. This and a wallaby will eventually be released back into the wild.

Willow drops us at Port Arthur a historic site of a prison colony. What amazed me here were European Oaks which clearly love the growing conditions, they are huge with relatively unblemished trunks and yet they can only be under 200 years old. I try to imagine what the poor individuals transported here made of the new world, nothing would have been familiar. I was also amazed that some tried to escape, to what? I don’t know. A narrow strip of land lead to mainland Tasmania and the governor at the time had ravenous wild dogs chained to a platform so any prisoners could not cross it. The governor himself sounds interesting because when one escapee who was caught passed the dogs. The Governor asked him how and he said he’d made a boat out of bark, the governor said he’d reduce the prisoners sentence if he could show how he made it. He did and the governor kept his word.
The place is historically significant and rather peaceful now.
In the 1990s there was a mass shooting here so its recent history is just as gruesome.
Its just after this visit I hear about the New Zealand massacre at a Mosque. The whole thing resonates with me in a way I cannot describe.

Before heading back to Hobart we visit the geological phenomena a tessellated pavement at Eagle Hawk Neck. Its so bizarre it looks man made.

Once everyone is returned to their destinations, Willow returns me to Launceston. Its a long drive, I have a whapping headache but she is good company and its only fair she has someone to talk to on the long drive.
We chat about various things, she is very open and very much an independent soul, living in her car most of the time. She heading back to Seal Island after this trip to continue conservation efforts there.
I hope she gets her passport sorted and takes me up on the offer of a visit to the UK sometime.

My final comment on Tasmania is about Launceston Airport. Apart from being tiny and very modern it must have some of the best views of any airport. I wrote nearly all my blogs for the last trip here.

New Zealand next stop.