It must have been a terrible ordeal for the prisoners at Port Arthur. Around 1830, England was rounding up criminals and other unsavory folks and shipping them off to Australia. Perhaps 70,000 people were sentenced to "transport" for deeds as dastardly as nicking a loaf of bread. Most were put to work on government projects or as cheap labor on private estates like Woolmers.
Being sentenced to Tasmania was among the worst punishments and the penal colony at Port Arthur was a special hell. The weather was (and still is) terrible and escape nearly impossible. Stormy seas and seaside cliffs deterred swimmers and the peninsula narrows to only a few hundred feet at Eaglehawk Neck and the "dog line" which was patrolled by vicious dogs. Probably the worst sentence was to the coal mines, hard work at the best of times, and where the recalcitrant would be kept underground in solitary confinement cells.
Australia, it seems, is just coming to terms with its convict past. The UNESCO World Heritage Convict Site tries to put it in its best light but the $A32 admission charge seems like extortion. For about the same amount as a single day at Port Arthur, we purchased a year-long pass to all the English Heritage sites in the England, a lot more to see and a lot more history.
