There`s no sign at the Hobart airport reading ”Welcome to Tasmania-The Place That Time Forgot,” but it would be appropriate. For this island state, compact and relaxed, is a living museum of well-preserved buildings, fine country mansions, evocative convict ruins and quaint villages where time seems to have stood still for 150 years.
Tasmania hangs like a heart-shaped pendant 150 miles south of the Australian mainland, separated by the stormy waters of Bass Strait. On some maps the island is left off altogether; it`s certainly the least-known area of the Land Down Under, which helps explain its time-warp charm.
The smallest in size, and, with fewer than half a million inhabitants, the least populous Australian state, the island is affectionately known as Tassie. Its size-somewhat smaller than that of Ireland-brings everything within easy reach, whether historic places or areas of awesome scenic beauty.
A criminal record
Tasmania today is the epitome of tranquility, but it was not always so. The island has a cruel and harsh heritage, dating back to the early days of the 19th Century when England sent its most incorrigible convicts to Van Diemen`s Land, as it was then known. It is well to remember that what is picturesque and well-preserved today in Tasmania was built largely by the sweat and toil of convict labor. That is particularly difficult in the beautiful setting of its capital city, Hobart, which snuggles against the looming backdrop of Mt. Wellington, snowcapped much of the year, on one side and the serene Derwent River on the other.
Established in 1803, making it Australia`s second-oldest city, Hobart evolved from penal settlement to garrison town, seat of government and whaling port. You can see all these beginnings in this showplace of colonial architecture because commercial growth has been well controlled. Its easygoing and friendly atmosphere is best captured by walking around the community of 160,000 people.
The past preserved
According to George Deas Brown, the courtly Hobart lawyer who is state chairman of the National Trust of Australia (Tasmania), ”eternal vigilance” has been the key to maintaining the city`s heritage. Says historian Tony Rayner, who conducts local walking tours, ”People are really charmed by the fact that Hobart has been left behind.”
What`s been left behind includes the splendid harbor area where, with the smell and sparkle of the sea all about, one senses a cross between an English provincial town and a modern seaport. Along the old wharves fish is sold from boats and in restaurants, and tour boats dock in areas once occupied by whaling vessels.
Not far away, across a beautiful park and gardens loom the graceful lines of Parliament House. Initially built in 1840 as a customs house, it is now home to the state legislature, which can be viewed from the gallery when in session. Also nearby is Salamanca Place, an imposing row of freestone warehouses built between 1835 and 1860, ”probably the best-preserved colonial structures in the whole country,” according to a local preservationist. They have been tastefully restored for use as eating places, boutiques, shops and offices. On Saturday morning the area becomes a lively and colorful open-air market packed with locals and tourists.
On higher ground above the warehouses is Battery Point, a nicely preserved enclave of colonial residences where tiny workmen`s cottages vie for space on narrow streets with imposing Georgian homes and Victorian terraces. The surviving houses have a trim charm enhanced by verandas with ironwork frills and neat, cared-for gardens. Some cottages have been turned into restaurants, stores and bed-and-breakfasts, but most are still used as residences.
A simple harmony
Adjacent are the Anglesea Barracks, laid out in 1811 for the original garrison, making it the oldest army base in continuous use in Australia (it is still open to the public). Its substantial structures, many with heavy studded wooden doors and open colonial verandas, combine a mix of styles into a complex of brisk simplicity and surprising harmony. The buildings are enhanced by stands of linden trees, a magnificent old eucalyptus, several wheeled artillery pieces and a web of walls.
Battery Point looks out on a city filled with outstanding brick and sandstone bastions of administrative dignity and congregations of learning, worship and conviviality, many dating back to pioneering days. ”I pray and drink beer in the same church and pub my great-grandfather frequented,” says an old-timer.
On the outskirts of the city the Tasmanian National Trust maintains Runnymede, a charming single-story 1840s sandstone villa with a recessed veranda. Its fine period furnishings reflect the tastes of its three distinguished 19th Century owners: a lawyer, a bishop and a sea captain.
Convicts eventually became a nuisance to the growing community of Hobart, so in 1830 a major penal settlement was established in Port Arthur, 60 miles southeast of the capital at the tip of the Tasman Peninsula. Today it`s easily visited by car or bus-indeed it`s Tasmania`s leading tourist attraction-but in those days there was no road. Because the peninsula, surrounded by towering cliffs and treacherous waters, is connected to the mainland only by the very narrow, easily guarded Eaglehawk Neck, it became virtually escape-proof.
A blunted image
Entering Port Arthur by road you glimpse green lawns and towering trees, the ivy-covered but roofless remains of a Gothic church, the enormous bulk of the penitentiary, the well-maintained commandant`s house and several other buildings in various states of repair. Readers of ”The Fatal Shore,” Robert Hughes` definitive history of Australia`s penal origins, may expect the site to be more foreboding, but actually the soft tones of pink brick, much of it crumbling, and the bay glittering nearby make the scene appear benign. The shudder the convict ruins evoke from tourists comes from the contrast between its mild, pastoral present and the legends of its cruel past.
About 30,000 prisoners passed through Port Arthur between 1830 and 1877, and many convicts as well as staff members who died in the penal colony are buried on the truly spooky Isle of the Dead, a stone`s throw out in the bay. Barely an acre in area, it contains the graves of 1,769 convicts, including Hey, who wrote the first novel in Australia, and 180 free men, including Rev. George Eastman, the long-term chaplain, described by a guide as ”a notorious drunk and womanizer who hated prisoners.”
The majority of manageable prisoners in Van Diemen`s Land didn`t stay at Port Arthur but were assigned to farmers, tradesmen or other masters, or worked in chain gangs on useful tasks, including construction of most of the historically significant structures on the island before 1850. This heritage is most clearly visible in the charming villages along the Midland Highway connecting Hobart and Launceston, the main city in the north, and a personal favorite, Richmond, a few miles north of the Hobart-Port Arthur road.
A haunted bridge?
It is fitting that you come into Richmond over the oldest bridge (1823)
in Australia, its masonry work of small stones set in wide mortar joints adding to the effect of mellow antiquity. Tourists are warned that the ghost of a particularly harsh overseer, killed by convict laborers, still haunts the bridge, but no sign of him was apparent. Across the Coal River looms the imposing St. John`s Church (1837), the earliest Roman Catholic church in the nation. A favorite visitors` photograph is the view of the oldest church through the arches of the earliest bridge.
Richmond`s fortresslike Gaol (jail), built in 1825 to house convict gangs engaged in local public works and later prisoners in transit from Port Arthur to the gallows in Hobart, once counted among its inmates the infamous Isaac
(Izzy) Solomon, a colorful London brothelkeeper and swindler, on whom Charles Dickens is said to have based the character Fagin in ”Oliver Twist.” A sign next to an untended basket of nectarines (for sale at 75 cents a bag)
next to the Gaol reflected the town`s slow-paced charm: ”Honesty Box-75 Lashes If Caught Stealing.”
Not far away, leafy trees shade Richmond`s village green, and its sandstone Georgian mansions and small salt-box cottages contain a delightful mixture of tea shops, galleries, craft boutiques, inns and museums, as well as homes.
Set in rolling pastureland with gentle vistas redolent of the English countryside, the 125-mile Midland Highway is best traveled at a leisurely pace, for it traverses a region of tradition, gracious living, fine homesteads and gentle little towns rich in historic buildings and associations with pioneering days. Each village brings another colonial inn in which to take afternoon tea, dine or sleep, intriguing antique shops, neat rows of simple sandstone cottages flush with the road, solid public buildings and fine old churches.
Oatlands, straddling a low ridge amid the lush countryside and abundant with fine homes behind white picket fences, has an intimate and rustic air typical of communities along the highway. Its dominant feature is the formerly derelict Callington Mill dating back to 183Numerous other Midlands villages, particularly Evandale (site of the annual penny-farthing bicycling races), Kempton, Longford and Perth are well worth a visit. And Launceston, Tasmania`s second-largest city, is an excellent starting point for visits to the three finest country mansions in Tasmania: Clarendon, Franklin House and Entally House. These handsome homesteads are tangible reminders that while settlers on the Australian mainland were still clearing the bush, pioneers in Van Diemen`s Land were settling comfortably into tree-lined estates that perpetuated the Georgian dignity and manners of their distant homeland. Blessed with rising wool prices and access to abundant, practically free convict labor, large landowners were able to emulate the surroundings and social trappings of that age of elegance and gentlemanly conduct.
The finest example of this rural elegance is Clarendon, an ample and gracious Georgian house built in 1838 by a wealthy merchant and woolgrower. With its pale yellow exterior, awe-inspiring portico, magnificent grounds, formal gardens and sweeping driveway, it is reminiscent of plantation homes in America`s South. Painstakingly restored by Tasmania`s National Trust, Clarendon`s expansive interior is luxuriously furnished and appointed in native pine, blackwood and marble. Outside, it is entirely believable that more than 100 years ago imported deer, exotic birds and domesticated kangaroos roamed the vast estate ”in great numbers,” as an eyewitness wrote.
The National Trust deserves much credit for restoring the best of the past and marshaling broad support for preservation projects. ”Tasmanians seem more conscious than other Australians of their history and traditions, so we`re more interested in preserving our heritage than mainlanders,” says Diane Tuckfield, state secretary of the Tasmanian National Trust. Fortunately, Tasmanians have had a lot to work with and have done a good job.
The result is a compact, often overlooked treasure-house of historic places surrounded by natural beauty. If you want a serene journey back in time, Tasmania`s the place. –
