Saturday 29th December

Breakfast was the same as yesterday – same time, same place, same food. Same fabulous view.

The couple in the adjoining unit were leaving at the same time as us (about 9:30am). They had been travelling around Tasmania in the opposite direction to us. She was Swedish and he was French. They strongly recommended that we visit Bruny Island (which is south of Hobart) because of its natural beauty.

We headed south along the A3 (Tasman Highway) on our way to Port Arthur. We passed through several pretty seaside towns such as Swansea and Orford. Just past Swansea, we stopped at Kate’s Berry Farm to taste their jams and admire the view.

As we approached Sorell, which is the town at the turn off to Port Arthur, we knew we must have been coming into civilisation (or at least entering the 21st century) because our mobile phones started getting reception for the first time since we left Launceston. Unfortunately, we lost reception again once we left Sorell.

About 10km before Port Arthur, we stopped at the Tasmanian Devil Park. Apart from the Tasmanian Devils, they have a variety of birds and animals including some very tame kangaroos and wallabies.

The highlight of the visit to the devil farm was the feeding of the Tasmanian Devils. The keeper gave us an introductory talk about these animals and then threw in a large hunk of raw meat. There were three of them in the enclosure. One of them caught the meat and then ran off around the enclosure, hotly pursued by the other two. When they eventually caught him, the three of them fought over the meat, tearing it and tugging it ferociously until it was all gone.

We reached the Country Comfort Motel at about 2:30pm. It is an ideal location because it is right next to door to the tourist site.

After booking in, we drove around to the historic site. Our package with the motel included free entry to the site, a site-seeing cruise on the harbour, a walking tour and a night-time ghost tour.

The two daytime tours gave us a good introduction to the site and its history. We had enough time to walk around most of the site but not enough time to visit most of the exhibits in the various buildings. However, we did spend some time before dinner at the museum in the visitors centre.

We’d booked for dinner at Felons Restaurant which is located within the visitors centre. The food was good but the service was slow.

The ghost tour was fun. They had lots of groups leaving at 5 minute intervals with each group consisting of a guide and about 20 people. They took us from building to building in the dark for about 90 minutes telling us stories about ghosts that people claim to have seen in the past. Apart from the guide’s torch, our only lighting consisted of three lanterns. It was good fun.

Before dinner, I’d walked back to the motel to get coats and scarves but it didn’t turn out to be quite as cold as we were expecting.