Penal Port Arthur - Carver

On Thursday, we went to a place called Port Arthur. We had finished our time in Hobart. Hobart was fun. Unfortunately we didn't get to do much there. We arrived late Wednesday night. We went grocery shopping and went to bed. On Thursday morning, we went to Mount Wellington, a mountain west of Hobart. We drove to the top and enjoyed the rocks. The wind was so strong that I almost lost my jacket. It was stronger than the gale force winds we had one day in Sale. After that we went to a restaurant and ate very good fish and chips and ice cream. Then it was time to go.

We drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove... and drove all the way to Port Arthur (actually we stopped to pick strawberries and to look at the Richmond Bridge, the oldest still used bridge in Australia.) Once at Port Arthur, we stopped at the Tesselated Pavement. It was a beach but the ground had been carved into different shapes, the loaf and the pan formation, by the Earth's pressure and then carved further by the waves.

The Loaf Formation

The Pan Formation

Then we saw the Blowhole, a cave formation with a broken-in roof that blows out water when the seas are rough (the seas were very calm that day so we didn't see much.) After that we went to see the Tasman Arch, another cave formation that is now just a gigantic arch. Then we saw the Devil's Kitchen, another cave formation.

The Devil's Kitchen!

The Devil's Kitchen again!

The Devil's Kitchen another time!

All right, this is the last one. I hope I didn't bore you too much.

Oh, look at that! Another picture of the Devil's Kitchen.

Look at the water going over the rock through the arch...

Whoosh!

The Blowhole from the left.

The Blowhole from the right.

The Blowhole from the right again (but also in action.

)

However, it turns out that the three are all formed by the same thing and that their shape depends on their age. The Blowhole is the youngest and hasn't had its roof completely cave in to form an arch. The Devil's Kitchen is the oldest and has lost its roof everywhere on it. The Tasman Arch will someday fall and become something similar to Devil's Kitchen. And they all started out as a tiny little sea cave.

After that we went to where we were staying and slept. The next morning we drove down to the historic site. Australia used to be a penal colony. England would ship people over on a six month boat ride. They would be forced to do hard labor to build the colony (in fact, the Richmond Bridge was built by the prisoners.) And when they finished their sentence in prison, they didn't even get to return home unless they could afford to buy their way back. Port Arthur was a great place for this. As you can see, that tiny neck of land was the only way out (unless you were willing to swim through the shark infested waters) so they only had to patrol that part.

But we chose not to go because it was very expensive just to get in. So we went to the Remarkable Cave. We hiked about five minutes from the parking lot to a boardwalk above a beach. However, the beach was not right on the ocean. The ocean was through a cave. There wasn't a staircase down to the sand but it would be possible to climb over the fence. We could see footprints on the sand, though.

One of the two entrances to the cave.

The other one. Look, you can see the shape of Tasmania!

Then we went on this walk to another blowhole. We didn't make it there though. On the way was a huge hill of sand. So Syarra and I played in it. As we played, people came back from the blowhole and said there was nothing exciting to see. The sea was again too calm. After that, we went back to the Blowhole we had been to the day before (stopping to buy some very good chocolate from a chocolate place on the way) to get fish and chips (or squid and chips) from a seafood and chips stand we had seen last time. After that, we continued on to Freycinet National Park.

Sandslide!

Our sandstone cave!