Ruins.

Port Arthur was a penal colony on the Tasman Peninsula outside of Hobart. It was a secondary prison, meaning that everyone there had already been serving time when they blotted their copybook again and got sent off to Port Arthur for extra punishment. Extra punishment at Port Arthur often involved spending long days in leg irons, felling trees and carrying the logs down to the Port to be sent to Hobart as lumber or used within the prison boat yards.

We spent a whole afternoon at Port Arthur, walking around the ruins. The most striking feature of the complex was the old penitentiary building. It was originally a flour mill with the mill powered by a water wheel. When water was in short supply (which was most of the time) convicts provided the power, running like hamsters on a treadmill in alternating 15min shifts throughout the day. The whole system didn't work very well, the convicts having an unfortunate habit of dying, getting injured, or simply just not running fast enough to effectively run the mill. After 4 not very productive years the building was repurposed into a cell block to accommodate an increase in convict population as the more remote prison colonies were wound up.

The ground in front of the penitentiary was reclaimed by filling the area with logs overlaid with earth. Foundation work done when the penitentiary started collapsing in the 70s discovered that the penitentiary was also built on reclaimed land, which does not bode well for the long term preservation of the building as the logs continue to rot away under the ground. On the other hand, Port Arthur must be host to some very happy termites.

There's one of the logs in question.

On the hill behind the penitentiary was the guard tower, and behind that the remains of the soldier/civilian settlement.  Not much remained of that: the buildings were largely dismantled and sold off when the prison operation came to an end. What was left was then further dismantled  by enterprising locals and sold off as souvenirs before the Government repurchased it as an historical site and put an end to the unofficial souvenir trade.

I wandered through the Commandants House, which was in stark contrast to the cold, damp cells in the penitentiary.

We caught the harbour tour to the Isle of the Dead, where everyone who died at Port Arthur was buried. Separated by class and station in life, they were further separated in death. Convicts jostled for space in unmarked graves on the lower slopes of the island; civilians, soldiers, women and children lay on the high ground with sandstone headstones carved with heartfelt (if often mispelled) epitaphs. We toured the island under the direction of a guide who brought a disturbing amount of humour to his dark subject matter.

Finally, footsore after 4 hours and with half the site yet unvisited, we took ourselves off to the Port Arthur Motor Inn. The Port Arthur Motor Inn came into being when the government took over the prison site and closed down the private guesthouse which had operated from buildings such as the Commandant's house. The public demanded somewhere to stay close by, and the Motor Inn was the result. While technically a motel, it had both the feel and look of a guest house. From the verandah outside our room we looked back down the hill to the ruins,

and the wide windows of the dining hall had a grand view of the ruined church and the back courtyards of the civilian cottages.

As evening rolled in over the Tasman Peninsula we took a quick drive down to Remarkable Cave. The shoreline alternated between fierce rocky headlands and quiet coves. Away in the distance Tasman Island was visible beyond the three capes. 

30+ years ago I clambered down steep steps to Remarkable Cave and took photos in the tunnel as the sea sucked in and out. Not so today: large signs warned us to stay on the viewing platform lest random rocks falk on our heads or we be taken out to sea by an unruly tide. Local Tasmanian teenagers ignored the signs and leaped from the platform to the secluded sand below. The steps back up to the car park were new and I'm sure had gotten steeper than they were 30 years ago.

By the time we'd seen the cave and taken a circuit past Impression Bay evening was well on its way. 

Home for the night: Port Arthur Motel.