After flying on Jet Star Airlines from Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania, we rented our second car from Avis and stayed three nights at a B&B located right at Signalman’s Point on Mt. Nelson, high above the city of Hobart.
Since we had ample time to explore the city after arriving in the morning, we walked around Battery Point and Salamanca Square and wandered through a park where Ron is pictured standing by the statue of Tasmania's namesake, the explorer Abel Tasman. On our first full day in Tasmania we decided to take a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory (free samples!) on the way to Mt. Field National Park. At the park we took a 2-hour circular hike to Russell Falls, the “Tall Trees” (a giant variety of Eucalyptus called “Swamp Gum Trees,” Rainbow Falls (pix),
and back to the Visitors Center. A 40-minute drive on a gravel road took us up much higher on the mountain to Lake Dobson. On a short hike around the lake instead of encountering a deer, chipmunk or squirrel, we actually saw a wombat!
On our second full day in Tasmania, April 6th, we decided to drive down the Tasman Peninsula to Port Arthur, famous as the site of a huge high security prison
where repeat offenders in the U.K. were shipped by sailing vessel in the mid 1800’s to far away Tasmania. We fully expected Port Arthur be a town instead of just a historic prison site; however, no town actually exists, and we were lucky to find a single service station. 
The prison—long abandoned and mostly in ruins—does have a very impressive Visitors Center where one can read the stories of individual prisoners. The entrance fee includes a 45-minute guided tour and a harbor cruise. The Port Arthur Church (required attendance for all prisoners) no longer has a roof but must have been impressive in its day. 
After visiting Port Arthur we stopped at a couple viewpoints in Tasman National Park on the way back to Hobart. We are both pictured standing on “The Tesselated Pavement,”
a large slab of rock at water’s edge that had been scored by the elements into a unique grid formation. Also on the way back to our B&B we drove through the historic town of Richmond which has Australia’s oldest bridge, completed in 1823 by convict labor. - rw 
3 comments:
Where is the picture of the wombat?
I would like to see the wombat too. I'm impressed by Mr. Tasman's height!!
Too bad re: the wombat. Weren't able to get the camera out before he disappeared! - Dad
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