This place was ginormous. The ticket gives us 2 days entry, but I am sure we needed at least 3 to see everything there is to see, so in true fashion, we crammed it all in less than 6 hours. The kids were fantastically semi-interested in what the tour lady said for the first 50 minutes, and then managed to smile and nod at the appropriate times we pointed out some bits of the ruins.
Our ticket included a cruise around the bay and a stop at The Isle of The Dead, where there was apparently over 1400 convicts and officers buried. The lady that was giving us the tour of this tiny little island ( less than the size of half a footy oval), was trying her hardest to be slightly humourous and even managed to laugh at one of her own jokes once. I tried to smile and acknowledge her a couple of times but was just secretly wishing she would just stick to the facts, as that was actually very interesting.
We got back onto the boat and continued walking around the ruins, just being fascinated by the history we had heard abnout earlier in the day, and seeing what conditions the boys and men had to endure, simply for punishment of simple crimes such as stealing a couple of loaves of bread, or some silk scarves. (For those historians reading this, you may know that Port Arthur was a prison for repeat offenders, but it was for very simple crimes that today would barely get a policeman off his chair and put his packet of Twinkies down).
We finally ambled out and headed back to base camp.You guessed it..... beer o'clock.
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