The Nature of Tasmania

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To understand Australia’s convict past, I asked a Swede named Bjorn to lock me into a haunted solitary confinement cell, the light as black as oil. Disobedient prisoners, transferred to the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, would spend as much as 30 days in this small cement hole, losing their mischief and their minds by the time it was all over. It had only been a few seconds, but the depth of silence and sensory deprivation, coupled with the tortured souls of evil men, blew a sticky wind down my neck. Port Arthur, after all, has a reputation as the most haunted site in all of Australia.
“Bjorn, open the door!” I hollered, but it was shut, no light at all emerging from the cracks. If authorities wanted to kill a man’s soul, they knew how to do it.
“OK, I apologize for that remark about your rancid fish, and maybe Swedish tennis players don’t have the personalities of flaking paint,” I continued, because by now, that wind had turned to sweat, and it felt like I was about to be victim number one in some cheapo ghost flick. I was about to start, em, screaming in fear, when Bjorn opened the door, and blessed freedom flowed in. Tasmania is blessed with the some of the cleanest air and best light on the planet. Despite its somewhat sordid history, I was determined to enjoy it from now on.

Tasmania, an island state in an island country. Home of the devil, sanctuary for the wombat. Until the last ice age, it used to be connected to the rest of Australia by a land bridge, but now it sits apart in the southeast corner, protected by the wild seas of the Bass Strait. It’s not a must-see for most visitors who come to Australia, but then Modern Gonzo does not represent most visitors. The thought of battling hordes of backpackers for a space on a beach up the Gold Coast was as appealing as covering myself in a chocolate and gatecrashing a Weight Watchers party. I wanted peace, I wanted quiet; I wanted nature and rivers and waterfalls. That’s why according to my notes, I was having a conversation about the middle-eastern politics of lesbian bricklayers with a flamboyant homosexual named Peter at the Pickled Frog. With the cheapest beer in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city, it was always going to be a challenge not to get pickled myself at this vibrant hostel. It was well into the wee hours, and the conversation was flying like a tennis ball, with Peter making a racket against gay marriage, and his plight for having to slum in a hostel because his billionaire Swiss boyfriend couldn’t find him a room at one of the better hotels in the city. It was all getting a bit much until Tracy, a geologist from Melbourne, said, “Don’t think because you’re gay you understand what it’s like to be a woman!” Ouch. In a few hours I would have to get up to mountain-bike down Mount Wellington, the impressive mountain with rocky organ-pipes that overlooks Hobart. According to Tracy, it could be a pin-up in a geologist’s porn mag, but then geologists are a funny lot.

Now I’m flying down the mountain, courtesy Mount Wellington Descent (”it’s all downhill from here”). The ride stretches 20kms back into Hobart, but you could be back in minutes if you didn’t pause to check out the scenery. The view from the top was exquisite, across the city, port, islands and forests. Tasmania was discovered as early as 1642 by a Dutch navigator named Abel Tasman, who promptly named the island after his boss as sure-fire way of sucking ass and getting a promotion. Not much happened in Van Diemen’s Land until the British decided to settle convicts on it in 1803, turning part of the island into a penal colony for criminals, including women and children. Australians used to be quite sensitive about their origins, but these days they are rather proud of their humble beginnings. After all, most of the founding convicts were involved in petty crime, such as stealing loaves of bread, or making out with the magistrate’s daughter. Van Diemen’s Land however was reserved for the hard-core and repeat offenders. It was a tragically brutal experiment in prisoner reform and punishment, and one that failed utterly. Originally, prisoners would be assigned to work and support the free settlers, but this was not deemed harsh enough. Before long they were put into hard labour camps, worked as slaves with only gruel and God for sustenance. Port Arthur, the most infamous prison on the island, was created as a “machine to grind men honest.” But that machine ground to a halt by the mid-1800’s, the British stopped dumping its trash in someone else’s garden, and harsh Van Diemen’s Land became beautiful Tasmania, and lo, it was good.

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