CAMPSITE # 61 - Lime Bay State Reserve

Site : Lime Bay State Reserve
Camping Ground Rating : 6 / 10
Facilities : Great outlook. Camping Fires were allowed. No showers or drinking water. Drop dunnies.



We paid a visit to the historical Port Arthur. From 1833 until the 1850s, Port Arthur was the destination for the hardest of convicted British & Irish criminals.The maximum security prison at Port Arthur used to use similar techniques still used today at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Back in the day, the prisoners were confined to their tiny cells 23 hours a day. Their remaining one hour was their "exercise time" where they had a mask drapped over their faces until they and their neighbouring prisoners were locked in their yards - unable to see each other.

The prison was a silent prisons where prisoners were only permitted to speak when pre-approved by a guard. And they were given quiet working duties in their cells such as making brooms, sewing & mending.

Today, Port Arthur features one of Australia's top 10 most haunted houses. Tom was desperate to snap a ghost in the window... I think I have about 50 empty photos like these and no ghosts to prove their theories.

Included in the price of a bronze ticket ($30 per adult) is a ferry ride around the cove where you've provided with a brief history on the surrounding islands including - "Isle of the Dead" which is also believed to be quite haunted as this is where they buried the bodies of the dead - convicts & military officers together. "Point Puer Prison for Boys" imprisoned boys as young as nine years old. 

On our boat ride, we were told a story of 8 convicts who used the Commandant's vessel - believed to be commuting to carry out their duties on the Isle of the Dead. Alarm bells didn't start ringing of their escape until they had hit the ocean. For 2 weeks at sea, the 8 men passed themselves off to other boaters as the search crew looking for... themselves. Unfortunately for them, things got ugly once they arrived in NSW and were quickly returned to Port Arthur with their sentences dramatically increased.

Going to Port Arthur was an absolute eye opener for us both - I'm so baffled by the fact that these same imprisonment methods are still used over 150 years later. 

Another chapter was added to Port Arthur in 1996 when a gunman, Martin Bryant, went on a killing spree and took the lives of 35 people. It remains Australia's deadliest killing spree and one of the deadliest such incidents worldwide. Not surprisingly, since the massacre, Port Arthur's security measures have somewhat tightened. Before the massacre, you were once able to drive your vehicle onto the site which is how Bryant managed to smuggle in his weapon. When Bryant first began the shooting in the cafe, after he had calmly finished his lunch, one of the men who tragically lost his life mistook the gunfire for a toy gun even quoting to his friends "Now, that's not funny". While the staff members were busy rushing tourists away from the firing line, some thought it was all a roll playing re-enactment and ran towards the commotion. 
And seriously, who would expect the worst? Everyday we live our lives, the last thing we expect is for some psycho with a rifle to open fire in a tourist destination. I realised, as I prepared myself that morning for a day at Port Arthur that those 35 people would have walked in there as we did - ready to spend another day in their life, not realising that, sadly, it was going to be their last. Bryant is now serving 35 life sentences without the possibility of parole. Fortunately for him, it's at a high security prison in Tasmania and not Guantanamo.

Sausage Sangers & Boags in the car park...
best (and cheapest) lunch there!!!

On our way to Limes Bay Camping Ground,
we stopped for a Geology lesson at the Remarkable Caves...

We also stopped in at the Coal Mines Historic Site, just 10 minutes from our camping destination. The entry is free and you can view the rubble of what used to be an off site mining town that served as a place of punishment for the "worst class" of convicts from Port Arthur. They still had a horrible solitary confinement for those who were misbehaving.

The coal mine closed down after 40 years of operation partly because of the lack of coal recovered and partly because of an issue they had with controlling homosexuality activity between the convicts. 

Our stay at Lime Bay was to be the last for a little while with our new friends Jess & Dave. We were on our way to Launceston to collect Ben & Sophie from the airport. They were flying in from Brisbane to spend a few days with us... doing it (not-so) tough...