Today is Thursday 26 Jan 2006    AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL DAY    OI!! OI!! OI!!

Hello All from Port Arthur on this warm sunny morning and boy are we excited as its highlight number one of trip.. a day exploring Port Arthur Penal Settlement.
     But before I start the day's blog I forgot to tell you last night two thing, first was that we had dinner at the motel restaurant AND we finally got to eat our long awaited lobster meal. We ordered a lobster salad for two, and wow!! were we surprised when our meal was delivered to the table. It was a lobster about 1.5 kilograms in size sliced in half on a huge oval platter served with very fresh local grown garden salad. being lovers of seafood I dont mind saying it took a bit of getting through and also a hell of a lot cheaper than we costed at Bicheno, well worth the time and money.
    Then the second thing was that after dinner we opted to take the torchlight night tour of the settlement to let us get an entirely different perspective of the place, and my god we left 90 minutes later with that in our minds. I will admit even to the hardiest person it was a bit scary at times in certain places, you felt a cold breeze blowing on the back of your neck as if some one was behind you making the neck hairs stand up, But all in all it was a great experience to do it and realize what the convicts and in fact all had to endure and put up with on those long cold nights in isolation and no wonder some finished up going insane..
 TODAY'S BLOG:
      After that little remiss, its on to today's events of a big day we have had at Port Arthur. We did all the needed things early and left the room for a short drive to the front gates of the settlement to get in early and enjoy it to the fullest. The gates opened at 9-00am and the people line was a long one to get in, on the inside the hosts took the people to an area to tell us of what options etc were available to us. Really only two, first you could do it as individuals at leisure and take time or do a tour with a guide with commentary of the main highlights which lasted about 2 hours. Seeing that we were going to be there most of the day we decided first to take the guided tour to learn a bit about the place then later do it by ourselves and enjoy it. Remembering that we did the night tour last night we were seeing it in daylight we saw what we though and read about the place, its isolation, its history, its stories of severe penal treatment of convicts and the harshment of conditions along with the difference of living standards between the convicts and the officers and guards.
    So later in afternoon with tired bodies we decided to end our visit here, to a place that has played such a huge part in Australian history with so much to take in and learn about what went on during that period . To me individually I walked out with many many different thoughts about the place and its people.
   One could ramble on for hours with words of the place through my eyes but I feel I would not be doing it any justice so with that said, I willsay I have been three times to here and never gotten sick of the place.It is certainly Tasmania's and one of Australia's major attractions
for visitors and most certainly should be on every persons travel itinerary.
 I have included a web album of Port Arthur Photos to look at :...

http://blackmarlinphotographics.smugmug.com/Port-Arthur-Convict-Settlement