Last full day…

I can’t quite believe that today has been my last full day in Tasmania… it’s been fantastic, rich and full, and today has been no different.

The dangerous strong winds forecast didn’t materialise, but it was pretty windy, and that meant the Coal Mine Historic Site I’d thought of visiting was closed. So I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast chatting with the lovely owners of the stunning B&B I stayed in last night.

After checking out, I headed round the Tasman peninsula back to Eaglehawk Neck ~ the narrow, 100m wide isthmus, joining the peninsula to the rest of Tasmania.

Port Arthur was a large penal colony, but actually the entire peninsula was the prison ~ an enormous area of what would’ve been impenetrable forest and bush, over hills and mountains. The military didn’t need to worry about men escaping, most couldn’t swim, and the only access by land, if they made it far, was this narrow neck.

To create a terrifying alarm and deterrent, one of the Officers came up with the ‘Dogline’. Today I took a short beach walk to the dogline memorial sculpture.

The Dogline was a series of ferocious dogs, chained under lights on a white cockle shell path, spaced across Eaglehawk Neck. Very effective!

There’s just one of the buildings from the military outpost remaining, the Officers’ Quarters, which houses a really interesting little museum. 

Next stop, coffee! And thankfully, despite the weather, the double-recommended coffee van, “Cubed” was there at the Pirates Bay Lookout and did not disappoint!

It was a day of drinks stops… coffee, gin, wine (I was very careful with how much I had!). So next stop was Dunalley Bay Distillery, located in a fantastic location, pulling off the road, right by the beach, in an attractive ‘hut’. I met the distiller, Mark, and later also his wife, Sandra and had literally a sip of three of their rather lovely gins…

Then, just a couple of kilometres up the road, I pulled off to a highly recommended cellar door, Bangor Vineyard Shed, where I enjoyed a very small glass of their award winning Pinot Noir, with a Tasmanian cheese platter ~ enough cheese to have a doggy bag for this evening(!) ~ looking out over the autumny vines and coastline.

I was fascinated and loved readings  little about the story of this family-owned vineyard. It belongs to the Dunbabin family, now the 5th generation farming and growing vines. The original piece of land was bought in 1890 by Thomas Dunbabin, and it’s grown from there. Thomas was a convict… a convict who managed to make a life beyond his sentence, and a lovely specific convict story of hope to bring my engagement with the convict history of Tasmania to a close.

I then headed to Richmond, taking the coast road, and pausing at Dodges Ferry by the beach where I watched surfers ~ that feels Australian! You probably won’t be able to make the surfer out in the picture, but he’s there, honest!

While there, I took the opportunity to pack… sounds odd, but for the past 12 days I’ve basically been living out of the car and so needed some serious sorting before flying tomorrow ~ and I seem to have ‘acquired’ some extra bits and pieces!

Richmond is a little town made famous by its colonial buildings and particularly it’s stone bridge, the oldest road-bridge in Australia, built by convicts in 1823, and still used to cross the Coal River. 

And for my last night in Tasmania, Mulberry House B&B, with the rain and wind battering the windows, and reminding me that I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have 12 days in Tasmania in late autumn and enjoyed amazing weather!

Last night here, but there are plans for tomorrow before flying to Sydney and being reunited with Em, and Jeff this time too!