You’ve been very patient with my holiday snaps, and kind with your comments...thank you.
This is the last Tassie post I promise...cross my heart J
They’ve come in no particular order...no-one who knows me would be surprised by that, so today we have Port Arthur and Battery Point.
Port Arthur is a place teeming with ghosts and ghastly stories. The tour guides try to downplay it, and that seems fair to me. After the awful events of April 1996 when Martin Bryant gunned down 35 people, both tourists and site workers, you can hardly blame people for wanting to emphasise the reformist aspects of this historic place. It was a penal colony, a place of incarceration for men and boys, designed to practice a new 'enlightened' view of imprisonment on the most difficult of the convicts from other parts of Australia. Almost inescapable due to its geography, only a very small number actually made it out. Despite its history, or perhaps because of it, I was captivated by its physical beauty. I hadn’t expected that.
Who knew black coral was a popular decor item in the 1800s?
And the kitchen in the commandant's house....cosy and comfy don't you think. What must the prisoners have thought about a lovely home just metres away? Fabulous faded wall mural and embroidered curtain coming up...
I want to buy a house in Battery Point. Excuse me while I dash off to buy a lottery ticket!
memorial to the 1996 tragedy
all images: a tranquil townhouse
