The following day we went to explore Port Arthur during the day.  We went on the tour, saw a short play, and wandered around the ruins.  It is a very interesting historical site, and it is pretty amazing to learn about the unique convict history of Australia.

Port Arthur

We spent about half a day there and then went to see the rock formations around Doo Town.  Doo Town is unique because every one of the houses has to be named and have the word “doo” in its name.  I found it amusing and made a nice collection of the names but that was the point – anything for tourism.

We went to see the sights such as, the  Remarkable cave (which was closed) Devil’s Kitchen and the Arch, but the most fascinating thing was the live echidna which was shuffling along the walking track.  We had only seen it in the animal parks before so it was a real treat to see it in real life.  The views were nice too but nothing that we thought was too spectacular.

I just wanted to pet it.

We wanted to spend that night in Cole’s Bay so we could hike to the wineglass bay the next day but when we called the campsite, it already closed.  We decided to go to Bicheno instead, since it looked like a bigger town and we figured we’d have a better chance finding some place to stay there.  As we drove around the 3 streets of Bicheno we saw plenty of hotels and campsites but each one had a “no vacancy” sign.  We were getting worried, especially since we saw cars doing the same thing we were doing – going in and out of accommodation places.  We drove by one house, which was a bit out of town, (We were driving down every road imaginable) and it had a sign which said “vacancy.”  There was no one there, but there was a phone number.  Since it was literally our last hope we drove back to town to use a payphone, since we did not have any cell phone reception.  A lady did indeed say she had room and that she would meet us there ASAP.  We were relieved and raced back to the house which was called Harvey Farm Lodge.  The room was huge there was a kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a living room.  We couldn’t believe that in a town with literally no more places for people to sleep there was suddenly too much places for people to sleep.  The lady locked the other 2 bedrooms and the other bathrooms.  There was also Port, chocolates, and cookies which we could help ourselves to.  The lady then told us that if we were hungry and wanted dinner we better go ASAP since the one pub in town stopped serving food at 8 and all the stores had long closed.  We were confused at how a town overflowing with tourists had only one pub which stopped serving at 8 but we went ASAP and were able to order with 4 minutes to spare.  It was not even overly crowded as we had expected it to be so we had no idea where all these tourists were.

We flew to Tasmania on one of the world’s worst Airlines, Tiger Airways, which seem to be in direct competition with Ryan Air for the worst service award in air service.  In Melbourne they have a separate terminal just for them, which is definitely no frills.  It’s an old hangar that was probably retired from housing planes so of course it is fit to be a terminal.  Everyone was doing the “Tiger Shuffle” which means that they unpacked all their bags and re-shuffled belongings in hopes they would pass the weight test.  Luckily, we were successful in our shuffle.  At least the plane brought us to Hobart in one piece.

We rented a car and drove to Richmond right away.  It is famous for housing Australia’s oldest bridge which is still in use, so of course it was a great thrill to drive over it (twice) and also for the oldest Roman Catholic Church, St. John, still in use.  It was a very cute town and both the church and bridge were very picturesque.  There we also visited Old Hobart Town, which is a model village of Hobart from 1820s.  It is fun because you can play a scavenger game in the village looking for certain things.

Then we drove to Port Arthur and on the way stopped to see the tessellated pavement at Eaglehawk Neck lookout.  It is pretty cool considering it is not man made.  We stayed in Stewarts Bay Lodge, which was very spacious and had a great view of the bay.  We wanted to make dinner, but the nearest grocery store was quite a drive away and did not have much food anyway.   Nevertheless, we scraped something together.

tessellated pavement

That night we went on the Port Arthur Ghost Tour.  The stories were entertaining and our guide was good, it just would have been better if the groups were half the size and if no flash photography was allowed.  We had one very avid photographer who kept flashing at everything, blinding us.  The tour is lead by candlelight so it was pretty dark and flashing was incredibly annoying.

Port Arthur by night (No, I did not use flash).