Mo In Australia: 2011

Port Arthur was the convict prison in Tasmania. Jamie and I learned quite a bit on this tour. It was a good day.

These first pictures are of Richmond. This is the oldest bridge in Tasmania.

Oldest Catholic Church

These next pictures are of a dog line. When the convicts would try to escape Port Arthur, they would have to go through the small area of Eaglehawk Neck where they would encounter a dog line. These dogs were extremely viscous.

Port Arthur wasn't just a place for convicts to be punished, they also made things there. To export them, they would move them in carts like this. It took four convicts to move this one car...oh and it didn't have breaks.

Layout of Port Arthur

When we arrived at Port Arthur, we were each given a card that had a convict on it. Our challenge was to find our convict and figure out his crime.

Barracks for the convicts

My card!

My prisoner

Still my prisoner

This is the old mill that was turned into a penitentiary

Church

Government House

Another angle of the mill/penitentiary

These were the cells that the convicts were put in. The lower floor had single cells only. Then, if you behaved, you could move to the top floor which was more like a dorm.

This was the Law building

Asylum

Place where Jamie hopes to end up

These were the cells the convicts were put in when they were in extreme punishment. This building was called the Seperate Prison. Prisoners in this building were to wear a sheet over their head, responded to a number, and were not allowed to talk. If they did, they were punished even more. There were actually carpets in this building so that the guards were not heard.

In the chapel of the Seperate Prison, the convicts were to stand the entire time and and were kept seperate even then. Each of the rows had doors that were barely big enough for one person.

Inside one of the cells

The Seperate Prison also had a cell that had blocks that were 3 feet thick and had 3 doors. It was completely silent and very very dark. Major sensory overload.

How thick the doors were

Each prisoner was to exercise one hour of the day and had to keep moving for the whole hour. They were not allowed to socialize with each other even then which is why there was a big wall between them