Farewell Tassie (Day 174)
A short time in the historic Richmond before our flight, which we didn't get! So did we say "Farewell Tassie"?
Our last day in Tasmania, what a delightful island. We said farewell to Anna, our lovely host. We so enjoyed staying with her. It makes such a difference to our stay when we have interesting conversations about a multitude of subjects. We learn, we explore, we reflect.
Tim’s hair was getting a bit unruly so we found a local barber, a very nice hip guy trimmed his hair. He explained that Tim should comb his right side forward and left backwards to go in the direction of the hair growth. Basically, Tim has a big spiral on his head! There you go, every day is a school day. As Tim’s cut was very good I asked the barber if he could give my hair a bit of a trim. I haven’t had it cut for 176 days. He agreed and again did a very good job, I liked how he twisted my hair around his fingers when drying to get a nice curve and then added a tiny bit of wax and lifted my sides to give it some height. Hurrah! We don’t look like a couple of drifters now!
We had heard that Richmond was a nice place to visit and found a good walk in “100 walks in Tasmania” at Anna’s, so drove there for a few hours. It is steeped in history with many vineyards in the surrounding area. We parked up and walked along a side road, looking at a few nice houses and shops built in the early to mid-1800s. There was a small cemetery which had a plaque giving information of the people buried there during the same period with ages ranging from 1 day old to 94 years old. Onto St Luke’s church, designed by the famous architect John Lee Archer, who seemed to have designed all the major buildings here. It is very pretty and looks as if it has been restored in recent years.
Back in the day, Richmond was established as an important military staging post and convict station, connecting Hobart with Port Arthur where we visited yesterday. The gaol or jail as I spell it, (When did the spelling change? Any idea?) is the oldest intact jail in Australia, predating Port Arthur by 8 years. It has been very well preserved and has been turned into a great little museum. We listened to special effects, like a prisoner getting 10 cat o’ nine lashings (they could get up to 100 lashings). We read stories of the tough punishments that were handed out, such as John Davis was put into solitary confinement in a tiny dark cell for 7 days as he was suspected of stealing a shirt. Suspected! Tim and I both went into a cell and locked the door. Pitch black, cold and damp. I lasted a minute.
The women had 2 latrines built for them, originally these were in the middle of where the men would walk for some exercise. When we went in one of the small cubicles, Tim noticed a very large hairy spider just above the door. I wondered if it was there just for effect, thinking it was a toy one. When I mentioned this to the guy at the ticket counter, it was, in fact, a real one and he went off to investigate!
We carried on our walk and came to Coal River with people picnicking and cooking on the free BBQs, ducks and geese waddling around hoping for some titbits. Further on was the historic Richmond Bridge which is the oldest stone span bridge in the whole of Australia, now included in the Australian National Heritage List. More churches and old houses to view and a coffee stop at @Czegscafe it was time to drive on to the Airport. A very “nice” place, refined, interesting for a few hours, felt quite English except for the quintessential corrugated tin roofs you see over here.
We arrived at the Airport in plenty of time. While waiting to board our flight, we heard that it had been cancelled; the next one is tomorrow. Eek – we have a flight to Uluru tomorrow early morning. Luckily, with quick thinking, I hopped onto Skyscanner and booked an alternative flight later this evening and Tim has managed to get a refund for the cancelled flight. Phew! Perhaps Tassie wants us to stay longer, what do you think?
Better get going, need to check-in now, fingers crossed this flight takes off tonight. Farewell Tassie.