Life Down Under (Part 27): The Inescapable Prison, The Odd Museum, and The Lunar Eclipse

- November 6-8, 2022, Sunday to Tuesday.

- Hobart might be a small city, but it is one of Australia's most historically-important ones. Hobart is one of the first modern cities built in Australia, and continues to function as a port city. As many early cities in Australia were built by convicts, it isn't surprising that Hobart is home to one of Australia's convict centers. Not just that, but one of the biggest as well.  

- In Hobart, it is a must to visit Port Arthur, one of Australia's most famous convict sites. It lies outside Hobart, but is easily reachable through a day trip from the city. I took a Gray Line bus tour to see Port Arthur and other interesting sites (click here to see where I got my tour). 

- On the way to Port Arthur, we first passed by the town of Richmond to see the Richmond Bridge and the Richmond Gaol (the old spelling of "jail".) Richmond Bridge is the oldest bridge in Australia that is still being used; it was built in the 1820s, around the same year as the Richmond Gaol. The Richmond Gaol, while small, still holds the title for the oldest most intact gaol in Australia today. It was built just a few years before Port Arthur.

Richmond Gaol.

Female confinement; they were taught how to do chores too.

Female cell.

Flagellation area.

I cannot imagine how many people have been inside this cell (as prisoners).

Convict clothing.

Male cells.

Entrance to the gaol museum.

Fat ducks by the bridge.

Richmond Bridge.

- After a short visit to Richmond, we headed towards Port Arthur, where we spent most of the day. Port Arthur was used from 1833 to 1877. Port Arthur lies in a part of Tasmania that's almost an island, making Port Arthur a natural prison. People deemed the worst criminals were sent to Port Arthur. 

View of Port Arthur's penitentiary.

The church ruins.

Government cottage.

- Port Arthur was one of the early prisons to shift from physical punishment to psychological punishment. The prison had a "Separate Prison" for those who committed worse crimes. The Separate Prison required convicts to be silent and hooded. Because they were not allowed to communicate and didn't have much light, many became insane. Eventually, convict transport was banned, and those that remained in Port Arthur were either too old or too insane to do manual labor. The convict center shut down in 1877.

The Separate Prison.

Inside the "better" cells of Separate Prison. The worst (which I didn't take a photo of,) was just a very dark room without windows and more isolated from other cells.

Walking in front of the penitentiary.

Isle of the Dead. Part of the visit to Port Arthur is a cruise at Carnarvon Bay. Isle of the Dead is the place where more than a thousand people were buried, from convicts to officials.

Shipyard. Ship-making was one of the contributions of convict labor for a while.

Guard Tower.

View of the hospital, the law courts, and the penitentiary.

- After our visit to Port Arthur, our tour bus had a chance to visit some of Tasmania's coastal wonders. Australia really does have a lot of natural wonders no matter which part of the country you go!

Remarkable Cave. I think people are allowed at times to go to the cave, but the waves were crazy that day.

See the waves. (This cave is really high by the way.)

Maingon Bay Lookout.

Devil's Kitchen.

Tasmans Arch.

- The following day I went around the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in northern Hobart. It was built in 1818, making it the second oldest after Sydney's. The garden was built in a rather hilly area, so there are high and low parts (a bit like Brisbane's Botanic Gardens in Mt. Coot-tha!)

Near the Chinese Garden.

Huon Pine. These are some of the oldest plants on Earth!

Anniversary Arch; built in 1968 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the gardens.

Flower clock.

Japanese garden.

Australians are really good at making Japanese gardens. None of the Japanese gardens I've seen in Australia disappointed me!

Fountain, built in 1972 to celebrate the bicentenary of French exploration in Tasmania.

One of my favorite places in the garden: the sub-Antarctic plant house. I guess, for now, this is the closest I'll ever be to Antarctica. 

At the convervatory.

Couldn't help myself, I was just too tired.

- I also passed by the Hobart Cenotaph, a war memorial built in 1925. Although it looks close to the Botanic Gardens from the map, it is a bit tricky to reach since they're all on a hill.

Tasman Bridge.

Hobart Cenotaph.

Saw a wild rabbit!

- After visiting the cenotaph, I had a stroll in the city center, thinking that I probably don't have much to do in Hobart. Before going home, I decided to pee in Brooke Street Pier near the CBD. Lo and behold, I found out that there are ferries that depart from Brooke Street Pier to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)! I peed and decided to visit MONA that afternoon. Thankfully the kind lady at the ticket counter allowed me to get on a ferry that was just about to leave! The ferries usually depart every hour, and can take around 20-something minutes to arrive to MONA. I initially did not consider going to MONA - though I heard it was a must-visit - because the museum was too far to reach from the CBD. Public transportation in Hobart isn't the most practical, so I didn't think of visiting. And thankfully, I did!

Leaving Brooke Street Pier.

Even the ferry was artsy!!

Tasman Bridge again.

By the deck.

We have a cow too.

Oh look, an Indian ship!

Mt. Wellington.

MONA!

- MONA opened in 2001, and is owned by David Walsh, a professional gambler. The museum is hard to describe as it blurs the boundaries between old and new art. I find it odd, in a good way. In many instances, both old and new art with some relevance to each other are presented together in one gallery. While the general themes of life (i.e. birth and death) and sex can be seen, the exhibits are generally random. Truly, it does look like an artsy theme park of sorts. The most surprising of all is that I loved the museum! (This is coming from someone who isn't usually interested in contemporary art, in favor of ancient/classical art.)

Oh look, it's my home in Aussie!

This tunnel blasts plenty of weird noises. It was disturbing.

This was a cozy room!

"Untitled" (White Library) by Wildredo Prieto.

This freaked me out too.

One of my favorites in the museum: a cuneiform tile, surrounded by binary codes. I think of this as the relation between the first ever written language of the world, and the current digital language used in coding.

Sidney Nolan's "Snake."

Car or balloon?

Sarcophagus and other items pertaining to death.

These were all in water....complete with an actual living fish.

People can make their own art too. She's good!

Ai Wei Wei's "White House," made from a Qing Dynasty house.

This interesting "truck" just outside the museum.

More artsy stuff by the playgound at the back of the museum!

There was a live band, with one kind of music I like - new age.

- I rode the ferry back to Brooke Street Pier, and had dinner by the pier. Hobart's docks have some of the most amazing seafood floating stalls, and one of them was even in the shape of a whale!

Boarding the ferry on the way back to Brooke Street Pier. 

My whale-shaped seafood stall for the night.

And I ate this at the pier. The scenery was perfect, but I was terrified of the seagulls.

With some desert at the stall beside too!

  - On my last day in Hobart, I visited St. David's Park near Salamanca Place. It was built in 1804 and serves as the first burial ground of Tasmania. This being said, the most important feature of this park is the memorial wall with the tombstones of the first people to be buried in the park. (This actually reminds me of Manila's own Paco Park, which has some parallelisms with St. David Park's history.)

St. David's Park.

Memorial Wall.

The wall is REALLY long!

More memorials.

- I had a peek at Salamanca Square afterwards, which was just behind St. David's Park, before visiting Arthur Circus Park in Battery Point. Now I know what you're thinking, but the word "circus" here doesn't refer to your traveling entertainers with animals and acrobats. Rather, "circus" here just refers to the fact that the area is circular in nature. The area, developed in the 1820s, is still one of the most sought-after properties. Most of the houses are heritage houses as well, dating back to the 1800s.

Salamanca Place.

Parliament House Gardens.

Salamanca Square.

Saw these little hands in a store in Salamanca Square.

Arthur Circus (see the heritage houses in the photo.)

A normal photo of Arthur Circus.

Oh wow!!

- I had lunch in the city before heading back to my hostel to rest, and ride the Hobart Skybus to the airport for my evening flight. Despite flight delay, I was able to see the lunar eclipse from the airport and inside the plane. If I had the worst flight from Melbourne to Tasmania, my flight back to Melbourne was one of the best. Not only did I see the eclipse from the plane, but I also saw the silhouette of Tasmania's northern shores, and saw Melbourne while I was still flying above Tasmania.

Adorable creatures in Hobart International Airport.

Lunar eclipse.

From the airport. (That's not my plane, I flew with JetStar.)

Not the best photo, but just letting you know that I saw the eclipse from the plane. HAHA.

Above my Australian home, Melbourne.

- Tasmania is truly one of Australia's best destinations, no wonder many convicts decided to stay and bring their families to Tasmania. Despite Tasmania's dark past, the island-state now has quirky Hobart, breathtaking Launceston, and the little charming towns in between that are definitely worth visiting!