Incarcerating women

Located in Hobart, a little distance from the nice Airbnb residence in which we were staying, we found the stark remains of a women's prison built in the 19th century. It was also a factory where women were put work producing goods for the infant economy. Not much of it is left standing, but it's another reminder of the cruelty of 19th century British 'justice'. Women were incarcerated there for what would not be considered very minor offences, often for 7 years! Let's take a quick look around the site.




These pictures require little explanation they mainly show the stumps of long-demolished brick walls.

Here are the backgrounds of two prisoners, both dating from mid-century, but there were others. They show the types of crime committed, with the right hand one looking much more serious to us these days. 7 years for stealing those items looks rather absurd.

Some images of prisoners were shown on cards and one could find out more about them by looking up the right card in a wall of boxes. I think the RH picture shows the area before many of the were destroyed.

Here are a couple more images of the site - probably 19th century drawings:

 The site provided examples of prisoner first names and I was horrified to discover that nearly all of them are currently or were the names of my close female relatives. Have a look!

 

 

 

As with Port Arthur, the boss's residence remained intact. Take a wander through:

 

 

The residence doesn't look that plush!

AS

A retreat into the past

I'll start my massive slew of posts by a trip back in Australian history. Tasmania was settled early and became synonymous with convict history. Australia started off as a prison for miscreants whose crimes these days for the likes of stealing a sheep would end up with fine! Back then, it was transportation for 7 years. And, although Sydney was the starting point for the penal colony, Tasmania seems to have taken up the running for harshness, especially for second-time offenders. Port Arthur was the main destination for many, but Hobart was home to a women's prison and various parts of the east coast like Maria Island were especially harsh penitentiaries We visited many of these sites, which are sometimes rather beautiful these days.

Let's start at Port Arthur, leaving the others to the next post. The reason for this is simple. Although a harsh prison, its location is absolutely gorgeous. Wouldn't you have to liked to be sent to this environment?

The land is green and heavily wooded, mountainous, adjacent to a picturesque estuary, and brilliantly manicured .

More sombre is the second picture on the left, which is the isle of the dead - the place to bury those

prisoners who died of many illnesses prevalent in the early 19th century or, I presume, executed for their further misdemeanours. And, on the right, we see the turret which was part of the army HQ.

On the left we look over to where senior officials lived - medical, priests, etc.





The commandant also had nice quarters.

 He had a picturesque home - by Australian standards - and nicely decorated rooms. We ambled through these much as one would navigate a British stately home.

Alas, the site was also home to stark prison accommodation.

OK, today they're quite picturesque ruins today, but it's not difficult to see how forbidding they must have been 200 years ago.

Thus dude might be familiar to some of you, but let me assure you I'd committed no crime in being there.

The military barracks are up on the hillside - up from the circular tower we saw earlier.

The wall (left) housed recalcitrant prisoners in various forms of solitary confinement pictured below. Recognise the dame in the last two photos? It's Rebecca!

 
As you can see, we really enjoyed ourselves on a glorious Autumn day. Although 43 degrees South, the temperature on this day must have been close to 20 C - very pleasant.

A Month of Travels

Dot and I are back home after a month on the road and, during that time, we travelled widely across the beautiful state of Tasmania and then roamed around the equally impressive region of the Kimberleys in Western Australia's far north-west. The latter is around 424,000 square km, which is much larger than the UK's land area of 242.5 square km by a factor of 1.75! Guess its resident population size. It's only 35,000, which means the Kimberleys are virtually empty of people. Tasmania is small - only 68,000.5 square km and its population is just a little over half a million. That's a population density of 7.5 per sq km compared with the UK's 248 people per sq km. So it, too, is comparatively empty.

Both domains are mountainous and have exquisite waterways amply supplied with waterfalls. Both  are generally well-vegetated and have many different and sometimes exciting faunas, though their portfolios of species are very different. Those differences are fully explained by their respective latitudes: Hobart is almost 43 degrees south, not far off the 50 degrees of southwest England. On the other hand, Broome - the largest town in the Kimberleys - is under 18 degrees south and exquisitely tropical, while the region's top end is just 14 degrees south. Their climates therefore vary hugely. Tasmania is the coolest state in Australia, while the Kimberleys are amongst the continent's warmest parts. Remember that May is the equivalent of November in the northern hemisphere. How warm does the UK at that time of year? Well, the maximum is about 12 C (54 F), but during our 'end of Autumn' trip the daytime maxima varied between 29 C and 37 C (84 to 99 F), with most days nearer the hot end. Both states / regions are moderately wet, but have very different distributions of rainfall. Hobart averages about 626 mm (25 inches) while Tasmania's west coast, which we visited, receives 2400 mm (94 inches). That rainfall is distributed fairly evenly across the year. You'll gasp at the rainfall figure for Broome! It's average is not too different to Hobart, but in the summer of 2017-18 it has already had 1634 mm (c. 65 inches). Admittedly, there will be almost nothing in the rain gauge from now on - the dry season that all monsoonal regions experience.

During our stays in both Tasmania and Broome we had virtually no rainfall and masses of sunshine, which enhanced our experiences.

The Tasmanian odyssey was organised by Rebecca and involved not just ourselves but also grandson Max who was on school holidays. So the four of us travelled in a hire-car and stayed in pre-arranged accommodation, sometimes booked through Airbnb. I have to say that the Airbnb accommodation was very good - as indeed was the whole trip. Dot and I booked a formal tour through APT and everything was arranged in advance: accommodation, meals, the 4WD bus (seating 20), side trips, guides and so on. This was high-class and highly recommended. We had just 12 travelling companions and got on well with all of them. Our schedules, however, involved some weird hours since we frequently arose at 5 am for early breakfasts and departures to this or that attraction. Why? The answer is simple: walking on tracks and climbing rocks is best done before things get too hot!

Some final observations. Both trips entailed lots of sailing on boats, while we also flew in a helicopter, travelled on an historic steam railway, and - in my case - rode a camel. And my camera got a fantastic workout. I estimate that I took in the region of 1,200 photos! And those populate what is going to be a large number of posts in this blog over the next week or so. Please stay tuned.

AS