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Cape Hauy walking track,

Perfect Peninsula

There’s more to see on the than just Port Arthur, write Anabel Dean and Harriet Cunningham

PORT Arthur is radiant in sunshine. Honey- The World Heritage-listed museum located coloured stone ruins of the 19th century an hour and a half southeast of is the penitentiary lie in green pastures. There state’s biggest attraction, drawing 396,000 are waves lapping along the shoreline visitors last year, with links to a network of and songbirds in the spring blossoms. It’s sites where British rejects were tossed away peaceful. Temperate. A place for a picnic. to live as slaves (including the Cascades “Was nobody happy to be here?” asks a Female Factory in Hobart and the Coal Mines day-tripper surveying this pretty scene. “Are at Saltwater River). There is, however, more you seriously asking that?” reproaches the to the Tasman Peninsula than dark history. tour guide, spinning on his heels to face his It still has vestiges of little Britain — questioner. He has just spent the better part handwoven knits, hawthorn hedges, Cor- of an hour outlining the ingenious attempts nish pasties — but people talk more about of desperate men who tried to flee the living the unique attributes of clean air, abun- hell of the penal colony on the southern dant wildlife, uncluttered views, wild coast, tip of Tasmania. changeable weather. And sure enough, the Port Arthur has been a place of unimag- wind is gusting at over 90kph on the day we inable atrocity. Robert Hughes describes it take a Cruise with Pennicott in The Fatal Shore as “a pit within the antip- Wilderness Journeys around jagged coastline odean darkness, a small hole in the world to scrutinise the highest vertical sea cliffs in about the size of Ireland, which would, the Southern Hemisphere. in due time, swallow more than 65,000 men Marine life flicks across the bow of our and women convicts … transported purpose-built 12.5-metre yellow inflatable to ”. as it scuds from Stewarts Bay Lodge past Today, it’s a crime not to visit Port Arthur. the Isle of The Dead, round the PAGE 56

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Tasman ebike Adventures, Bangor; Information Tasman monument; the view from McHenry’s Distillery, Bothy. • Tasman Island Cruises (run by Pennicott Wilderness Journeys): www.pennicottjourneys.com.au • McHenry Distillery: mchenrydistillery.com.au • Ben Rea’s Tasmanian ebike Adventures: tasmanianebikeadventures.com.au • Stewarts Bay Lodge: stewartsbaylodge.com.au • Wildwood Luxury Retreat: www.wildwoodluxuryretreat.com • Three Capes Gear and Gourmet: 3capesgearandgourmet.com.au • Port Arthur: www.portarthur.org.au The writers were guests of the above companies and of Tourism Tasmania

southern tip of the Peninsula to Tasman Pillar and Cape Hauy to Fortescue Bay. There is smoked eel, labna, crusty bread Dutch (the first European landing in Tasma- the only distiller with its own natural spring. Island, and Cape Hauy, and finally An upgrade of the third of The Three Capes and more. nia) at what is now called Monument Bay, but It’s a tale of redemption worth hearing over a back to Pirates Bay on the east coast near is underway at (on the western side Afterwards, on two silent but super- it was another 150 years before French explorer wee dram of single malt whisky or, in our case, . of Crescent Bay), but there’s a lesser known powered wheels, we make an unobtrusive Marion du Fresne made first contact. a platter of local oysters and smoked quail fol- It’s a wildly exhilarating three-hour joyride ‘fourth cape’ that promises to take us where incursion across lambing paddocks and “This is pretty much as it would have been lowed by a four-hour gin-making workshop with the wind blasting salty spray into faces few have gone. ancient blue gum forests to a secluded beach. when Tasman claimed it,” says Ben. His words in the McHenry ‘gin palace’ on the flanks of and dragging tears from eyes. We can almost To get there, we need Ben Rea, an ex-Tas- Rea celebrates our arrival with another send a chill down the spine. A big cement Mount Arthur. touch the rocks riddled with spires, clefts, pil- mania Parks and Wildlife officer, who now lunchbox treat. It’s the best homemade monument was plonked in the bush back from Visitors are invited to craft their own gin lars and sea stacks, arches and blowholes. A runs customised adventure tours using buckwheat ginger slice ever tasted, but the the beach in 1923. recipe using a choice of botanicals (lemon vast ocean swells forwards, and upwards, then pedal-assisted electric mountain bikes to significance of this spot is greater still. “As a memorial to posterity and to the myrtle, orange peel, saffron, star anise, car- backwards, spluttering waterfalls like a foam- access some of the most isolated coast on The 17th-century Dutch explorer Abel Tas- inhabitants of this country,” it reads imperi- damom, that sort of thing) and then watch, ing soda fountain. southeast Tasmania. man spent two weeks exploring these pris- ously. We shake ourselves from silent reverie transfixed, as the concoction bubbles away in Look up at the towering Jurassic dolerite Our expedition begins outside the wine tine shores, and on 3 December, 1642, made by taking to the bitumen again and heading a bulbous still, then condenses as a clear liq- cliffs that soar 300 metres from the sea floor shed at Bangor, a heritage farming property, for the bay on which we stand. The sea was too about 20 minutes down the road to a monu- uid in a glass flask. The resulting elixir guar- and there are people as tiny as specks scat- just off the highway immediately south of rough for a landing, so the ship’s carpenter, ment of another kind. antees a warm glow from inside and out, with tered along the rim. This is the Three Capes Dunalley on the . A wind- Pieter Jacobsz, swam ashore with a flagpole The founder of one of Tasmania’s most the endless view beyond Port Arthur, beyond Track, a new multi-day walk intended to com- ing dirt road leads past Blackman’s Bay to the and planted it on the shore. Tasman had seen respected and awarded distilleries is Bill , into the Great Southern Ocean. plement the Overland Track, which links for- obligatory gourmet picnic of the finest Tasma- the campfires of the first Australians but that McHenry, a Sydney marketing executive who It’s sobering to reflect on the past, to know ests and heathlands from Denmans Cove, Cape nian produce laid across a fallen forest giant. was all. He took possession of Tasmania for the came to the Peninsula on holiday and returned that none escaped Port Arthur and that those in 2010 for the term of his natural life. He had who tried were condemned to a fate worse endured years of corporate incarceration until, than death. What must it have been to be sent Tasmanian treats one night, after a fierce boardroom battle, he to the solitary confinement cells that were drove through a red traffic light, missed the meant to curtail the contagion of criminality? Our four-day escape began at Stewarts Bay Lodge. another base from which to appreciate the a way to have your cake and eat it too. Three flight home and failed to make a significant Prisoners were forced to wear hoods and were It’s a definite cut above the usual holiday park with jaw-dropping scenery bursting with wildlife. Capes Gear and Gourmet is a local company 40 smart cabins (of various configurations, most And much of it can be seen, or heard, from the that provides all the gear with lighter backpacks family event. locked in rooms without sound or light for very modern) scattered along the waterfront of a huge glass lounge room windows at Wildwood specifically chosen for the track and food that is “I was nobody’s friend,” he recalls. “Next weeks on end. The experience that was peaceful bay. Luxury Retreat. actually a pleasure to eat. day, I was quietly chatting with my neighbour. supposed to encourage reflection only The little track in front of our luxurious This romantic one-bed apartment floats in Possibly this is more critical if, like the owner I told him that I was miserable. spawned insanity. hut provides easy walking access in about 15 treetops over two levels with views across grassy Gail McCallum, you’re “an avowed inner-city ‘Look, it’s obvious what you should One of the longest serving prisoners, Irish minutes to the Port Arthur historic site. There’s fields towards . The pantry is so well urbanite of the sort that develops sweaty palms if be doing,’ he said. ‘Your name is William convict Denis Doherty, overcame a stagger- an open-plan kitchen, lounge and dining area, stocked that, even in the absence of the owners more than a few hundred metres from proper cof- McHenry. Wear a kilt, learn the bagpipes and ing 43 years of incarceration in the Australian a comfy king-size bed and sliding glass doors onto who live in the adjoining property, we consider fee and 24-hour convenience stores”. make whisky’. penal system. His words return as we gaze out a timber deck, with a spa bath with meditative ourselves the closest of cosmopolitan friends. The pre-packed dehydrated supplies range We laughed out loud, but it was like a bolt towards the icy invisibility of Antarctica: “I views into bushland. The owner, Janice Sutton, is one of the from basic to a cornucopia of local eats and treats. of light through clouds. I thought: ‘I could have tried to escape, always to escape as a bird There’s a nice feeling of seclusion with the founders of the Koonya Garlic Festival and the cre- The writers of this article, newly inspired by the opportunity of more social activity at the on-site ator of an acclaimed garlic cookbook, Garlic Feast. possibilities of food from a plastic sleeve, recom- have a whisky distillery, be my own boss, does out of a cage,” he said. “Is that unnatural? restaurant, on the tennis courts and around the It’s worth returning to this verdant patch for mend the pasta arrabiata, green curry chicken and develop the business and leave a legacy Is that a crime?” playground/BBQ area. her alone. — the best breakfast of the entire trip — pancakes for my children’.” Today, it seems to be the most natural Down the road a bit, at Koonya, there’s If you’re walking the Three Capes Walk, there’s with maple syrup. Just add water. The legacy is McHenry Distillery, the thing in the world to escape to this little pocket southernmost spirit-maker in Australia, and of beauty, at the far end of the earth.

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