I had heard of Port Arthur in primary school I think, but like many others, I became acutely aware of it after the shooting in 1996. On arrival you’re booked into a 30min guided tour and a cruise around the bay. The tour was really just a brief intro and allowed you to walk the grounds with a bit more knowledge of what you were looking at.
The place is huge – much larger than I was expecting. It’s a mix of restored buildings and ruins of all sorts: prison, barracks, commandant’s house, surgeon’s house, etc. as well as houses that were built later on that became part of the townsite.
I spent a good 3-4 hours walking around (nice to get spend some energy again). There was the occasional drizzle, but not anything to spoil the day. I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who visits.
Back on the bike, I headed to Richmond north of Hobart. This was another town that looked after its heritage. Richmond has the oldest bridge in Australia. Coffee, cake, walk, photos….
Time to head into Hobart, but just a fraction early. So, I thought it would be a good idea to ride up to the top of Mount Wellington overlooking Hobart. About 1/3 of the way up I thought I’d made a mistake to tow the trailer up there – worrying about the downward journey. It was quite steep, windy (which is good of course), but quite narrow and close to the edge in some places, and friggin’ cold.
6c by the time I hit the top. Add the windchill and it was quite unpleasant. However, the reason I decided to head up was so that the sun was behind me when photographing Hobart.
Since it was so cold, I kept all of my m/c gear on (incl. helmet). I’m sure I looked a bit of a noong, but I was warm – everyone else wasn’t. 😉
Anyway, the view was spectacular even it if was only for about 5 minutes before I headed down.
In Hobart, I negotiated some of the steepest inclines I’ve ever experienced on the bike to get to Irene’s – not the smartest way to get there it seems, but I arrived Ok.
It was great to catchup (although we did fairly recently at a 30th school reunion) and meet Grant too. The 3 of us headed for a local Italian around the corner (Irene’s shout) where we continued to chat about Hobart life.