Port Arthur

 7 – 9 March 2022

We spent the weekend in Hobart with our daughters and made our final preparations to leave Tasmania. After a long, leisurely and delicious cooked breakfast with the girls we headed off to Port Arthur. We chose to stay at the caravan park and arrived in time for a late lunch. The park is well set out and each site has a fire pit. We were surprised to see an echidna foraging for ants on the top of a large tree stump. It seemed totally oblivious to all the people around it taking photos. It did eventually climb down through the inside of the trunk and continued to wander the grounds for some time. Later we went for a walk in the afternoon along the track towards Garden Point then down to Stewart’s Bay for a walk on the beach.

The caravan park is a great place to see the, endemic, Green Rosella

A cold night was predicted so we took the opportunity to use some of the firewood left over from our stay in the Huon Valley. A campfire is always a bit of a treat, especially on a powered site in a caravan park.

We didn’t visit the Port Arthur Historic Site this visit, instead taking the time to explore the Tasman Peninsula. Our morning excursion took us to the Tessellated Pavement, Devil’s Kitchen, Tasman’s Arch and the Blowhole. Each is accessed via a short walk and are within close proximity to each other. We constantly marvel at the amazing work of nature, especially in this part of the state.

We returned to the caravan park for lunch and headed out again mid-afternoon. This time we travelled on the scenic drive along the coast, turning off to visit a number of points of interest. We discovered another beautiful beach at Safety Cove. We also visited White Beach before driving on through Nubeena, then turning off to visit the Coal Mines Historic Site. This site is an Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property – one of eleven. A National Parks pass is required to visit, but there is no entry fee.

Coal Mines Historic Site

There are a number of walks throughout the site, of varying lengths and grades. We chose the easy half hour walk as our introduction on this visit. Interpretative signage tells the story of the discovery and mining of the coal, as well as personal stories of the convicts who were incarcerated there.

From there we continued towards Port Arthur, taking one last detour to visit Fortescue Bay. There as a campground and day use area which is accessed from a 12km forestry road. This is the departure point for those undertaking the Cape Hauy walk. We returned to camp late in the afternoon and enjoyed another chilly night by the fire.

We checked the weather and were a little undecided about our next destination but figured we would drive north along the East Coast and hope that we could find a sheltered spot somewhere in the Bay of Fires.