Hobart / Burnie Sightseeing Tours
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HOBART TASMANIA - PRIVATE/CUSTOMISED TOUR
FULL DAY Hobart City Sights & Port Arthur. Convict Settlement (8 hrs) Departs 8.30 am
FULL DAY City Sights, Mt. Field Rainforest, Richmond Historic Village (7 hrs)
Hobart Richmond Bridge
PRIVATE/CUSTOMISED HOBART, TASMANIA TOURS
City Sights, Mt. Field Rainforest, Richmond Historic Village
FULL DAY 7.5 hrs Flexible)
Departs Port 0830
RATE $350 P/person ( 2 pax)
$220 P/person (4–6 pax)
Includes transfer, guide, entertaining and informative commentary and entries. Does not include lunch. Tours in foreign Languages, available - extra.
See the old and the new sights of Hobart in the city and its neighbourhoods. We welcome you to Hobart, settled 1803, Australia’s second oldest capital city that is the financial and administrative heart of Tasmania, and that also serves as the home port for both Australian and French Antarctic expedition operations.
Departing Hobart the tour travels to Mt Field National Park located just 1.5 hrs away. This World Heritage listed park features stands of the world's tallest hardwood trees. Visitors enjoy a 20 minute tranquil walk to view the spectacular Russell Falls. Time permitting, we visit a glacial Lake Dobson and Mt. Tim Shea, located in the Florentine Valley.
Russell Falls, Tasmania
The tour travels to Richmond, an historic town of 15 heritage buildings of the 1824’s era (including the oldest goal and oldest bridge in Australia!) Richmond is regarded as Tasmania’s finest and most beautiful historic places. There’s time to stroll into shops that showcase the best of Tasmania's fine art and crafts.
Your guided tour allows time to explore the town with its many arts and crafts galleries along with the old Richmond Gaol.
Richmond early settler’s houses, circa 1825
HOBART TASMANIA
City Sights and Port Arthur (Convict Settlement)
FUKLL DAY 8 hrs
Departs Port 0830
RATE $370 P/person ( 2 pax)
$250 P/person (4–6 pax)
Includes transfer, guide, commentary, entries.
Does not include lunch.
The wild and scenic Tasman Peninsula was home to Australia's last penal settlement - the infamous Port Arthur. Visit the Port Arthur Historic Site for a guided tour of the open-air ruins and restored buildings.
What you will see
Port Arthur Historic Site - 1830 to 1877
More than 12,000 convicts were imprisoned here. This prison, in the words of one convict, was ‘the ultimate abode of misery!’ Your guide will relate its history and then visitors are free to explore the open-air ruins and the 30 restored buildings and the early colonial gardens. Time permitting, board the M.V. Marana for a narrated harbour cruise past the eerie Isle of the Dead, the colony's cemetery, and the Point Puer Boys Prison.
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BURNIE Tasmania
Cradle Mountain
PRIVATE/CUSTOMISED TOUR
FULL DAY Cradle Mountain, Tasmania Tour (7 HRS)
Cradle Mountain, just 1.5 hrs from Burnie forms part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and shares a "Twin Parks" agreement with the World Heritage listed Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve in the People's Republic of China.
The region draws visitors from around the world. The jagged contours of Cradle Mountain epitomise the feel of a wild landscape, while ancient rainforest and alpine heath lands, button grass and stands of colourful deciduous beech provide a range of environments to explore. Icy streams cascading out of rugged mountains, stands of ancient pines mirrored in the still waters of glacial lakes and a wealth of wildlife ensure there is always something to captivate visitors. The area is one of the most popular natural areas in Tasmania. A visit will reveal why.
Ancient pine forest, Cradle Mountain
About Tasmania
Tasmania lies 240 km (140 miles) south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait that is a wild ocean and where the winds blow up from the Antarctic. There are remote places of wilderness with spectacular scenery. Over half the island is uninhabited. Tasmania’s major attractions are its mountains, landscapes, pristine coastline, historical buildings and its space.
Tasmanians are renowned for their warm and genuine hospitality and your visit here will be memorable.
About Hobart, Tasmania
View from Mount Nelson
Hobart is Australia’s second oldest city and has a population of 193,000 people. In 803 Hobart became a port, landing free settlers, convicts and supplies to this new colony. It has remained an important port as scientific voyages to the Antarctic depart from here.
The city is has impressive colonial architecture especially at ‘Battery Point’. This small suburb is considered Australia’s most complete colonial village that has scarcely changed since 1930s and 40s.
The National Trust has classified one hundred of Hobart’s buildings. Much of the architecture both public and residential, is in the simple Georgian style, with brick and sandstone the predominate materials.
Today the city sprawls along both banks of the Derwent River and to an area at the base of Mt Wellington.
HISTORY PORT ARTHUR, Tasmania
Port Arthur, is located approximately 60 km south east Hobart. It is a 90 minute scenic drive from Hobart. The small town is dominated by the heritage convict settlement and the most popular Tasmanian Tour and tourist attraction.
Background History
The Port Arthur settlement started as a timber station. .From 1833, until the 1850s, it was the destination for the hardest of convicted British and Irish criminals, those who were secondary offenders having re-offended after their arrival in Australia. They were rebellious with hardened personalities and to be sent to Port Arthur convict station was an undesirable punishment. Port Arthur was a naturally secure site, surrounded by water (rumored by the administration to be shark-infested). The 30m wide isthmus of Eaglehawk Neck, the only connection to the mainland was fenced and guarded by soldiers, man traps and half-starved dogs.
Port Arthur – Separate Prison
Interior ‘Separate Prison’
Port Arthur, Tasmania
The "Separate Prison” at Port Arthur (sometimes known as The Model Prison) was completed in 1853 and extended in 1855, had 80 cells and was built in the shape of a cross with radial exercise yards around a central hall and chapel.
The punishment here focused from physical to psychological. Whippings, used in other penal stations only served to harden criminals. This system included the "Silent System" where prisoners were hooded and made to stay silent. This was to allow time for the prisoner to reflect on their actions, however, it was harsh and a cruel measure as the room was pitch-black in darkness.
Many convicts tried to escape Port Arthur and one convict disguised himself using a kangaroo skin to avoid detection. But the guards on duty who were half-starved, tried to shoot him. When the convict saw the guards lift their guns, he threw off his disguise and surrendered, receiving 150 lashes.
Port Arthur imprisoned juvenile convicts. Boys as young as nine arrested for stealing toys. They were separated from the adult convicts but were used in hard labour such as stone cutting and construction.
Convict-built church at Port Arthur
Port Arthur was in reality as harsh and brutal as other penal settlements and its use of psychological punishment, compounded with no hope of escape, made it one of the worst. Some prisoners committed murder (an offence punishable by death) just to escape the desolation of life at the camp. Of the 1646 graves recorded to exist there, only 180, those of prison staff and military personnel, are marked. The prison closed in 1877.
Tasmania's Rainforests
Mt Fields National Park Myrtle Beech Trees, Tree Ferns, Gully Ferns
Tasmania contains Australia's largest tracts of cool temperate rainforest, covering around 10% of the State. Cool temperate rainforest is very different from rainforest found in warmer climates. Unlike tropical and warm temperate rainforests, there are no root buttresses or palms, and climbing plants are rare.
In autumn and early winter in particular, the rainforest floor is dappled with an array of brightly coloured fungi.
Tasmanian rainforest evolved way before Australia's eucalypts.
Tasmanian rainforest contains some of the most ancient species of Australia's flora. Many of their ancestors once grew in Antarctica, Africa, South America and New Zealand, when these continents were joined together as a landmass called Gondwana. Tasmania’s rainforest dates back over 60 million years, well before ‘sclerophyll vegetation’ evolved, such as eucalypts and acacias.
Tasmanian rainforest grows in many different places and in many different ways. There are four main types: callidendrous (tall trees); thamnic (shrubby); implicate (tangled); and, montane (mountainous). Each has different groups of species growing in different ways. The variation is largely due to differences in soil, rainfall, aspect and altitude.
Port Arthur Penal Settlement
Historic Port Arthur is a major tourist attraction
The Port Arthur penal settlement began life as a small timber station in 1830. Originally designed as a replacement for the recently closed timber camp at Birches Bay, Port Arthur quickly grew in importance within the penal system of the colonies.
The initial decade of settlement saw a penal station hacked from the bush, and the first manufactories.
The 1853 cessation of transportation resulted in fewer convicts.
The 1850s and 1860s were years of remarkable activity, that aimed to make the station economically sustainable. Expansive tracts of bush were harvested to feed a burgeoning timber industry and large plots of ground were turned over to cultivation. 1857 saw the conversion of the old flour mill and granary into a penitentiary, adjacent to which was built a large range of workshops housing a steam-driven sawmill, blacksmith and forge, and carpentry workshop. In 1864 the last great project at the site, the Asylum, was also begun.
This pulse of energy, however, could not be sustained. The 1860s shuffled into the 1870s and the settlement began to enter its twilight. Numbers of convicts dwindled, those remaining behind were too aged, infirm or insane to be of any use. The settlement that had hummed with life slowly ground to a standstill. The last convict was shipped out in 1877.
Richmond, Tasmania Historic Village
An original Georgian village dating from 1824 is situated 24kms from Hobart and has a population of 830 people. The town is comprised of many historic public buildings, manors and cottages built of slate, cobbles, handmade brick and mellow stone. The Richmond bridge, built by convicts in 1823 is the oldest in Australia.
The town has a well preserved convict gaol, old shops, an Inn and a granary among its notable buildings. Visitors enjoy strolling its shops that showcase the best of Tasmania's fine art and crafts.
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