Our tour of the Tasman Penninsula began on day six. First, AG and I visited the former British convict settlement Port Arthur. When we entered, we were each given a playing card representing an actual person who had once been imprisoned in the complex. Though gimmicky, I rather enjoyed the personal touch that allowed us to follow an individual life through their tortures, toils, and triumphs. Each convict's life began in England, but through various twists and turns and repeated offenses, they eventually ended up in prison in Tasmania. AG kept remarking how crazy it seemed to ship convicts half way around the world. The journey required prisoners to be cramped together on boats for months. Mutinies were squashed by encouraging prisoners to rat other prisoners out: the desire for a shorter sentence turned everyone into informers.
Once a convict had finished their sentence, they were free to go. But, since the price for a journey back to England was high, many stayed in Tasmania. It made me wonder how many of the people I'd met so far on the trip owed their life in Tasmania to one of their forefathers for stealing a loaf of bread (and then a shawl and then getting in a fight and then...). Even our tour guide said his some-number-of-greats-greatgrandfather was once a convict there.
Port Arthur had its fun escape stories as well. One prisoner dressed up in a kangaroo skin to try to hop past the line of fierce guard dogs at Eaglehawk Neck. Upon seeing that he was about to be shot for food by the guards along the line, he revealed himself and was sent back to the prison. Another group rowed the head of the prison's boat half way up Australia before being caught and sent back to Port Arthur.
After exhausting all that Port Arthur had to show us, AG and I headed a short ways back up the peninsula for a hike along the coast that I had read about online. To get there we had to pass through the Doo-Town, where all of the houses are named a creative rendition of "Doo." When we hit the coast, a famed sea arch was right off the small little parking area. We continued along the coast, stopping at the Devil's Kitchen, overlooks with gorgeous views of the 300 m cliffs above the sea, and waterfalls. We were even able to take short adventures onto less traveled paths thanks to AG's fabulous trail guide. We finished the day setting up a tent farther down the peninsula next to a white sand beach with crystal clear blue water.
We'd been told by the park ranger that penguins lived in the next cove over from ours, so a little after 9 pm we made the short hike over to await the return of the penguins from the sea. These penguins' eyes are extremely sensitive to light because they're adapted to deep sea fishing, which means flashlights and cameras must be covered with red cellophane to bring the light into a range that will not damage the penguins' sight. Fortunately, the ranger had given us several pieces of cellophane to use. Unfortunately, our lights were not bright enough to carry very far. But, I was able to see quite a few penguins anyway. They appeared out of no where in between rocks and hopped and scooted their way up the rocky beach. After their numbers peetered off, we saw an opossum come out on the rocks. Then, the wonderful silence of the night was broken by a ton of voices. And lots of bright flashlights! AG and I were in disbelief! Was this group coming our way? Were they headed to the beach to see the penguins with their lights unsheathed in red? Yes, they were. AG and I gathered up our extra red cellophane, and I ran across the top of the rocks (the same type of bouldering that had brought me to tears several days earlier) to meet the leader of the pack. I considerately warned them about the penguins' eyes but was met with hostility. She knew the lights were too strong for the penguins, but she didn't care. She was going to see that her kids made it safely to the beach and got to see penguins, and she was going to be nasty to anyone who tried to stop her. I was so hurt by her tone that I stepped away and let AG move in to offer our extra cellophane and take care of the situation. And they did use the red cellophane from then on. Their lights were much brighter than ours, so I was able to see the penguins quite well now. AG and I sat for a little while longer, and when we hadn't seen a penguin from many minutes, we decided that their homecoming was probably over and that it was time for bed. We hopped over the rocks and back onto the trail.
As we were walking along the trail, we saw a tiny animal in the path. Another opossum? A squirrel? A penguin?!?! We'd inadvertently caught a penguin coming in for the night. It hobbled up the path away from us. We slowly followed it, not because we wanted to but because that was the way home and we thought it would veer off to the side and disappear into the bushes. But, it didn't. When we stopped, it stopped. So then we moved faster, hoping to push past it and allow it to go back down the path towards its home. When we were almost past it, the poor penguin took off. It moved very quickly despite its tiny little legs! AG and I almost died. We'd just scared the tuxedo off a penquin. We decided to hold very still and count to 100 before moving again to give the penguin time to complete its escape. Hopefully the penguin made it back to its home safely and with a heroes welcome for thwarting the big, bad predators.
The next day we set out for another hike along the coast. We were up early and the first ones on the trail. Though we didn't run into any people on the way out, we did see one unwanted visitor: a snake! It was our second snake spotting of the trip, but the first was while driving, so it didn't really count. This snake had just crossed the path and was only feet from us. The scary thing about snakes in Tasmania is that there are only a few kinds and they are all poisonous. AG seemed pretty freaked out and, being goofy AG, put on his rain pants to provide his legs a little extra barrier against any possible future attack.
We hiked out to some tall rock formations in the water. For some reason I was expecting them to be really skinny and precarious looking (one was called "candlestick" after all), but they were rather large up close. We then turned around, and, much to my embarrassment, AG proceeded to tell all of the hikers that we passed on the way back about the snake.
Once back at the camp site, AG jumped into the frigid ocean while I wrote post cards on the beach. Soon we were on the road back to Hobart for our last night in Tasmania. We didn't have a place to stay lined up for that night, but we assumed it would be easy enough to find a room. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was a three day weekend, so our top choice, the cheap hotel that AB recommended, was unwilling to make a booking for only one night. AG came to the rescue though and convinced the hotel owner to let us stay. We pulled everything out of the rental car, throwing away the trash and sorting through the gear, and then headed to a post office to mail the postcards and buy tape to seal up the "action packer" we were carrying home from the cruise. As a side note, all week I'd been listening to AG, AB, and NT talk about the "action packers" they'd collected on the trip and were carrying home. In my head, the mysterious "action packer" was some cool contraption with lots of pockets and wheels. Maybe something MacGyver would carry home from a cruise. I was slightly disappointed to find out that it was just a giant blue tupperware. By the end of the trip, that once mystifying "action packer" would become the bane of my existence.
For our last night in Tasmania, AG and I had a nice dinner at a restaurant in downtown Hobart where he'd eaten just before starting on the cruise. We finished the meal with a giant berry pizza, which sounds strange but tastes delicious.
The next morning we were off early to the airport. I was in charge of the giant blue tupperware, and AG carried both his bag and mine. While waiting for the airplane, I fed all of our extra change to a giant statue of a Tasmanian devil that promised to use the money towards preventing the spread of the facial cancer that is descimating the population of the small marsupial. After a layover in Syndey and an unexplained bump up to "Economy Plus," we were finally on our way back to the States.
Our adventure finished with a jaunt on the BART and then the Caltrain, and finally, after struggling to get the silly blue tupperware from the Caltrain station to my apartment, we were home.
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