February 27, 2016 – Port Arthur

February 27, 2016 – Hobart and Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia
After breakfast we met and walked to Salamanca Market. On Saturdays booths are set up selling food and crafts. It is the largest outdoor market in Australia. There are over 300 vendors. We spent an hour wandering through before our bus picked us up for the trip to Port Douglas.
It was a 90 minute drive to Port Arthur. We made a few scenic stops on the way. One stop was to look at Tessalated Pavement. It is where the sea water gets into the cracks in the rocks at the water’s edge and the result looks like tiles. Another stop was an arch made through the rocks by the sea water.
Port Arthur was a penal colony from 1830 to 1878. It was for men who were repeat offenders. They were required to do hard manual labor. Punishments were severe. We were given random convicts names and in the museum learned all about them. We had a privte tour of the grounds including the 3rd most haunted house in Australia. None of us felt or heard anything strange but we were told that other tourists had. We had a boat ride which took us past an island where boys from 7 years up were incarcerated.
Tonight we went to “Tassie” pub. The food and beer were really good. There were folk musicians playing. We found out that they play before the paid group comes in at 9 pm. It is a drop in groupwhich can have up to 60 musicians joining in. Tonight there were 9. They were great.
Tomorrow we leave Hobart and drive most of the day to Cradle Mountain. We will stay there just one night. We have been told that there is little internet there and it is unreliable. I will post again as soon as can.