Having undertaken the Ghost tour the previous evening, I decided to take the opportunity this morning to look around Port Arthur during the day. As Christian had already seen Port Arthur before and was strapped for cash he offered to sit in the car park, tidy up the van and plan our route.
Back inside I found the historical grounds absolutely fascinating, I know in the true sense of the word nothing was really that old (150 years) but knowing that it was a major convict settlement that helped form Australia as it is today was amazing; not to mention the fact that I have a natural inclination toward darker topics, like crime and punishment.
Part of the entrance fee included a trip on a catamaran; in a totally non-historic fashion the boat was big, shiny and completely modern, with a bar and allsorts. The trip took a short jaunt around the bay area and I got off at the Isle of the Dead as I had decided to do this particular tour; this in itself was a little disappointing and despite the fact that almost very part of the Island had people buried on it, it didn’t feel all that scary. The woman tour guide told stories about the people that had died and been buried there, but she was a bit soppy about it; overall the tour was interesting from a historical point of view but it could have been better. One of the most entertaining things was some old guy that wanted to smoke, the guide told him that smoking wasn’t allowed on the tour so he proceeded to get the hump for the remainder of the tour and face the opposite direction every time she was talking! Once the tour had finished we got back on the next boat to come along and were dropped off at the start.
By now I think I had been over 2 hours, perhaps 3 and I was aware that Christian was sitting in the van all this time. To be honest I could have spent the rest of the day at the site as there were still things that I hadn’t seen, but in an act of consideration I went back to the van, but hoped that I would have a chance to come back here again at some point.
Our next stop after Port Arthur was Hobart (that’s my wonderful town!), so we got back on the road again. The journey was, on the whole, quite uneventful, but we did pass through the most completely amusing town by the name of Doo Town. This in itself wasn’t the amusing thing, rather, the names of the houses in the town; Doo Little, Doo It All, Doo Fuck All to name but a few and a whole plethora of other entertaining house names containing the word Doo!
Before we knew it we were in Hobart and a quick glance into the Lonely Planet guide (every traveller has the Lonely Planet guide to Australia, it is the HHGTG for backpackers) indicated that there was a YHA hostel called Montgomery’s in the centre of town. By the time we had checked in and organised ourselves we had to make a decision about tonight, tonight being, of course, the Rugby Cup World Final between England and Australia.
As luck would have it a whole bunch of people from the hostel (including two of the fattest, dirtiest looking slappers you have ever seen) were planning to go out, so we joined them; the trouble is they didn’t know where yet. After visiting (not drinking in) every pub in the whole of Hobart, including the roughest looking pub I had seen in my time here, we descended upon the very pub that was next door to our hostel! As you can imagine the game commenced, the beer flowed, a splendid time was had by all and to boot, our hostel was only next door – hurrah!
As a footnote, I would like to relate something to you that I would rather not have seen. One of our party was a blind chap, not particularly scintillating and certainly not in the slightest bit good looking; but he did manage to off with one of the fat, dirty old slappers in the lounge… yuck!
Back inside I found the historical grounds absolutely fascinating, I know in the true sense of the word nothing was really that old (150 years) but knowing that it was a major convict settlement that helped form Australia as it is today was amazing; not to mention the fact that I have a natural inclination toward darker topics, like crime and punishment.
Part of the entrance fee included a trip on a catamaran; in a totally non-historic fashion the boat was big, shiny and completely modern, with a bar and allsorts. The trip took a short jaunt around the bay area and I got off at the Isle of the Dead as I had decided to do this particular tour; this in itself was a little disappointing and despite the fact that almost very part of the Island had people buried on it, it didn’t feel all that scary. The woman tour guide told stories about the people that had died and been buried there, but she was a bit soppy about it; overall the tour was interesting from a historical point of view but it could have been better. One of the most entertaining things was some old guy that wanted to smoke, the guide told him that smoking wasn’t allowed on the tour so he proceeded to get the hump for the remainder of the tour and face the opposite direction every time she was talking! Once the tour had finished we got back on the next boat to come along and were dropped off at the start.
By now I think I had been over 2 hours, perhaps 3 and I was aware that Christian was sitting in the van all this time. To be honest I could have spent the rest of the day at the site as there were still things that I hadn’t seen, but in an act of consideration I went back to the van, but hoped that I would have a chance to come back here again at some point.
Our next stop after Port Arthur was Hobart (that’s my wonderful town!), so we got back on the road again. The journey was, on the whole, quite uneventful, but we did pass through the most completely amusing town by the name of Doo Town. This in itself wasn’t the amusing thing, rather, the names of the houses in the town; Doo Little, Doo It All, Doo Fuck All to name but a few and a whole plethora of other entertaining house names containing the word Doo!
Before we knew it we were in Hobart and a quick glance into the Lonely Planet guide (every traveller has the Lonely Planet guide to Australia, it is the HHGTG for backpackers) indicated that there was a YHA hostel called Montgomery’s in the centre of town. By the time we had checked in and organised ourselves we had to make a decision about tonight, tonight being, of course, the Rugby Cup World Final between England and Australia.
As luck would have it a whole bunch of people from the hostel (including two of the fattest, dirtiest looking slappers you have ever seen) were planning to go out, so we joined them; the trouble is they didn’t know where yet. After visiting (not drinking in) every pub in the whole of Hobart, including the roughest looking pub I had seen in my time here, we descended upon the very pub that was next door to our hostel! As you can imagine the game commenced, the beer flowed, a splendid time was had by all and to boot, our hostel was only next door – hurrah!
As a footnote, I would like to relate something to you that I would rather not have seen. One of our party was a blind chap, not particularly scintillating and certainly not in the slightest bit good looking; but he did manage to off with one of the fat, dirty old slappers in the lounge… yuck!