Down Under and I Need Warmer Clothes….and a Computer Specialist !

Ahhhhhh!  Computers are so frustrating!  I wish I understood more, but I just want them to do what I want!  For two days I’ve been deleting hundreds of pictures from past postings to free up space so my new pics would post...told I had possibly used up all the space for my account.  Well, they still won’t post, but the text is there.  I’ll keep trying!

I left Melbourne and arrived in Tasmania, a southern island and another state of Australia.  I find myself thinking…or saying….”When I’m back in Australia….”, but I’m still in Australia!  My mother, bless her heart, had a similar problem when we visited Hawaii in the 1970’s.  She would say, “ When we get back to the states (or America)...”. Well, Mom, we haven’t left the United States!”  Now I can relate.

Eggs Benedict for breakfast, and off to the on/off tour bus for a quick trip to a Saturday market downtown Hobart filled with 300 vendors…food of every kind, art, crafts, and lots of people.  Rain is predicted for this afternoon and possibly snow.  It’s 40 degrees and windy, but that is ok since I bought tickets for guided tours at the Cascades Female Factory...one of the women's prisons  in Australia.  I’ll be inside.

It starts to rain at the market, and before I’m too soaked, I jump back on the bus and head to the prison.  For about 80 years in the late 1700’s until the mid 1800’s, Tasmania and the mainland of Australia were both used as a penal colony for Great Britain.  I’ll visit Port Arthur another day which was one of the prisons for men.   Eleven convict sites constitute the Australian Convict World Heritage Property, a World UNESCO site.

Over 25,000 women and girls were transported here for a variety of offenses which were usually petty crimes such as stealing, homelessness, prostitution, and debt.  Arriving in Hobart after a 5-6 month journey by ship, the prisoners walked ten miles to their future home.  After a medical exam and registration, the women were placed into one of 3 classes.

First class prisoners deemed suitable were assigned to work for residents in the colony as housekeepers and nannies.  Second class women worked in the prison making clothes and mending them.  Third class women, also called the Crime Class, were regulated to hard labor doing laundry. Women were also required to scrape tar and barnacles from knotted sailing ropes which was sold as a source of income for the prison.

Only part of the original women’s prison remains which they called “factories“ to make them more palatable to Victorian culture, and I’m scheduled for two 1- hr specialty tours….The Convict Tour and The Notorious Strumpets and Dangerous Girls.  We head outside into the wind and rain with umbrellas, and my best laid plans of tours INSIDE suddenly becomes 2 hrs spent outside!  But wait….we get under the cover of a small open shed with propane heaters!  Unfortunately, in each area as we move around the site, none of the heaters work!  

And then it starts to sleet!

Over 7,000 women and 3,000 of their children were in a space built for barely 300 people exposed to the weather, continuous dampness, flooding of the nearby river, poor nutrition, corporeal punishments, and abuse.  They were required to work 6 days/wk often 12 hrs a day.  Worse of all, they had to remain totally QUIET!  No talking at all, and the slightest disobedience was punished.

Women were sent on assignment to shorten their prison sentences, and to earn their Ticket of Relief completing their prison sentences.  However, they were often abused and returned resulting in longer prison terms.  A life sentence was 21 years and often sentences of 7-14 years were handed out for stealing clothes, jewelry, books, food, or even just not having a home.  Prison was often a revolving door!

I have on multiple layers of clothing and boots, but between the wind, rain, sleet, and cold temperatures, it is difficult to concentrate on the Australian prison system!  I am ready to head to the hotel to get warm!

Our group meets for the first time with our guide, and we head to a nearby pub for dinner, “best little pub in Australia”!  Crispy fish and chips are delicious!

The next morning after a walking tour of downtown Hobart, we head to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, a safe place for injured and orphaned animals.  I learn the difference between a wallaby and a pademelon, both smaller versions of the red kangaroo, but the wallaby has a thick tail and mouse-like facial features and a pademelon has a skinny possum like tail.  The wombat here is so active and playful, hiding behind our guide’s legs, like a shy dog.  The Tasmania devil looks too cute to have earned its name given by early settlers due to its ferocious growl and scream at night with white fangs, red eyes, and red ears looking like horns thus “a devil”.

Multiple large kangaroos lounge nearby, but the wallabies are interested in the food I offer. I have no idea if they are gentle and won’t bite, but one wallaby holds my hand with his upper legs and claws.  Their mouth feels like a horses’s on my palm.  I must speak “wallaby” since the animals won’t eat out of other peoples hands, only mine!

The echidna or spiny anteater is a strange combo with fur, quills, and a long beak about 4” long waddling around their enclosure looking for bugs.  God definitely had a sense of humor when He put these animals together!

Dinner at another local pub…slow roasted beef cheeks and a smoky mash…and I learn the Australian lingo to order beer.  I don’t drink beer, but a “pot” is an 8oz glass, a “schooner” is a regular size glass and a “pint” is a large mug.  Our guide says he hopes no one is a “2 pot drunk”…a local saying of a sloppy drunk after 2 small glasses of beer.

I will continue to try to post pictures which are the best part of this blog.  So sorry!