Log Fifty One – Wilderness, Convicts and Devils, The Tasmanian Snapshot

March 1, 2019

As always you never have enough time to see everything and at the end of your travels you are left with the sentiment that I must return to see what I missed. And so it is with our trip to Tassie. We have only skimmed the surface of this amazing place. Some lasting memories:

Wilderness

Tasmania has its fair share of amazing wilderness with some 40% of its total area covered by National Parks. The Cradle Mountain / Lake St Claire wilderness area is only one of two parks in the world that meet seven out of the 10 key criteria for listing as a World Heritage site. They have lots of trees that are over 2,500 years old and one in particular that is 100 metres (330 ft) tall . And what is so unique is that they are still there and growing and haven’t all been cut down.

International Naming

Tasmania boasts a town called National Park and a seaside town called Penguin. Were all parks around the world named after this tiny town of one shop and a pub, I would like to think so. Similarly I think all short little fat sea birds have been named after the village of Penguin in northern Tassie. As you would expect there is a big penguin.

Tannin in the Rivers

Everywhere in Tasmania the rivers run a chocolate brown colour. This is from the tannin that leaches from the native vegetation. I had to explain this to a couple of international tourists who commented that where they came from brown water was usually toxic and full of industrial pollutants. They were rather relieved with my explanation.

Convicts

I try to avoid measuring behaviours of the past with our values of today however at any reckoning the treatment of the convicts was brutal.

At Port Arthur convict penitentiary there was a cell where the walls are so thick there was no sound and no light could enter. The cell was designed for total sensory deprivation. Men would go mad in this cell.

Sarah Island is a tiny speck of about 5 acres in the Macquarie harbour on the west coast of Tasmania. You couldn’t find a more remote and inhospitable piece of land. It is windswept, wet and freezing cold. Down here you are getting closer to Antartica than the tropics of Australia. The men were despatched to Sara Island as a punishment. Worse yet the female prisoners were put on a nearby island which was even smaller and more bleak. The women did have a cave to sleep in but of course only at low tide because at high tide the cave flooded.

I guess in those days the concept of human rights hadn’t quite reached the conceptual stage.

The convicts have certainly contributed to the tourism appeal of Tasmania with the colonial architecture in Hobart and the rural towns and villages. You have to wonder what Tasmania would be without the convict history. Just think what the USA missed out on by rejecting the English attempt to send more convicts their way.

The Best Things About Tasmania

The food, wine and single malt whisky. This includes their famous scallop pies.

Temperate rainforest wilderness.

Amazing trees both ancient and tall. They have the tallest flowering hardwoods in the world.

Wooden boats.

Colonial towns and villages.

Quiet roads and no real traffic.

A pace of life that is a step back.

Tasmanian devils. They are so well named and you would never call a young devil Bambi, Fluffy or Snuggles.