Cascade Brewery, Female Factory and Australian Army Museum

Tuesday 13 January 2015

The Australian Army Museum Tasmania is located in the Anglesea Barracks – these are still operational barracks although they only have a holding staff.  The barracks included a significant number of historic buildings as the barracks were established only eight years after the colony.  The barracks are situated on the top of a hill overlooking Hobart and the Derwent River, and hence was ideally placed to watch for approaching Russians during the Crimean War.  Hayden had a lot of questions for Drew about all the historical military displays.  We were lucky in that we got to do a guided tour of the historical building in the barracks and this is only done once per week – unfortunately we had to leave a little before it was finished so that we could eat before our next stop.

https://armymuseumtasmania.org.au/

This was the Cascade Brewery – Drew did a tour of the working brewery, while Hayden and I did a “Heritage Tour” which covered the history of the site and brewery. Cascade Brewery is the oldest brewery in Australia.  The tours both included tastings – three types of beer of one’s choice for adults and a soft drink for kids – I tried one beer, and then traded my other two tokens in for a soft drink, big kid that I am.

https://www.cascadebreweryco.com.au/brewery-tours

From here, we crossed the road to watch a “strolling theatre” performance called “Louisa’s walk”.  This involved two actors and took us physically from the front of the brewery, through Cascade gardens, to the female factory.  The play started with the “nicking” of Louisa for stealing a loaf of bread in London – there was an active policy of seeking female convicts to address the gender imbalance in the colonies.  Her movement to the prison hulk system, transportation to Van Diemen’s Land aboard “The Rajah” and arrival at the Female Factory. The Female Factory was in operation from 1828 to 1856, and more than five thousand women spent time here.  The play then explored the different sections of the Female Factory and how the system worked.  When women were “assigned”, if they became pregnant they were returned to the female factory and after a very short period the babies were weaned and the mother sent to the Criminal Section for six months punishment of their “sins”. The children were kept at the female factory until they were two, and then sent to an orphanage.  Due to the combination of early weaning, inadequate nutrition and inadequate hygiene, more than nine hundred babies died at the Female Factory.  Conditions for women in the Female Factory were truly cruel and barbaric – humiliation, inadequate food and nutrition, isolation and vulnerability.  This play was extremely well done and genuinely brought the history to life.

http://livehistoryhobart.com.au/

Macquarie Harbour and The Ship That Never Was!

Saturday 10 January 2015

Today we went on a Gordon River Cruise with World Heritage Cruises, one of two operators in the area. 

https://worldheritagecruises.com.au/

We walked ten minutes downhill from our accommodation to the port, where we embarked for a 09:00 departure.  We were fortunate enough to have window seating, which had the weather not been good would have made a significant difference. While we did have allocated seating, we were able and encouraged to wander around the ship as desired.  The wind on the front deck as went across Macquarie Harbour was quite impressive.

Cape Sorrell Lighthouse

First we headed out past the lighthouses, through Hells Gates to Cape Sorrell, feeling the swell created by the roaring forties – the next landmark to the West being South America.  Hayden definitely did not enjoy this part!  The lighthouses were originally established to signal to boats what the conditions at Hells Gates were like, as once committed to the passage by turning in at Cape Sorrell, a sailing ship could not turn around against the swell and prevailing winds.  This was a really pretty area, but would allow best photographs of the coastline in the afternoon rather than the morning, due to being on the Western Coast.

Entrance Island Lighthouse

Hayden spent some time in the wheelhouse beside the captain enjoying himself and checking out all the controls.  We also saw Salmon Farms in Macquarie Harbour and watched the salmon being fed with big hoses pumping out the food.  The salmon farms actually looked quite pretty the way they caught the sunlight.

Next, the “Eagle” took us to Sarah Island, this appears to have begun as an earlier experimental version of Port Arthur but later became an industrious boat building venture using convict labour.  It operated as a penal settlement from 1822 to 1833. Sarah Island became the largest Australian shipyard of its time, prior to its closure.  The tour guide (Kiah) was very dramatic, I think Hayden would love, and be good at, a job like this! Kiah showed us many ruins and explained the background.  Kiah laid out seven puzzles that indicated that Sarah Island may have begun life as a venue for severe punishment, but does not appear to have continued in this vein.

 We then journeyed very slowly fourteen kilometres up the Gordon River – slowly so as to avoid damaging the river banks with wash from the boat.  We disembarked at Heritage Landing and had the opportunity to walk through the forest on a boardwalk seeing the variety of trees.  We saw a three hundred year old Huon pine that had fallen over, the former branches then grow upwards forming new trees from the fallen trunk, this particular one was reported to have approximately one hundred and forty.

On our return to Strahan we viewed an old style Huon Pine Saw Mill. The Huon pines are now protected and not permitted to be felled but many that were stuck in the forests and on the river banks are being retrieved as the wood does not rot and is therefore still in excellent condition.  Branches left behind, when the trunks were previously floated downstream, are now being used in the craft industry.

We headed back to the unit to wash some clothes and have dinner.

Then, off to town again to see “The Ship That Never Was” in the town amphitheatre.  This was performed by two actors and selected audience members.  It was the tale of a ship called “Frederick”, which was the last ship built on Sarah Island, with the official plan being that the convicts who built the ship would be the crew to deliver it, and themselves, to Port Arthur.  The convicts however, had other ideas and sailed it to Chile, allowing it to shipwreck there. This meant that there was no proof of its theft and loss of all the papers that showed the ship had indeed been built.  The mutiny to take control of the ship had taken place in Macquarie Harbour, not at sea, so it did not technically constitute piracy.  As a result the few convicts who were eventually apprehended were only able to be charged with a felony.  The play was very well presented and very humorous.  Hayden got to blow up a paper bag and be a “shot”, he also got to provide some of the wild storm with the aid of a spray bottle of water.  Really enjoyed this.

http://www.roundearth.com.au/