Port Arthur is a small town and UNESCO world heritage listed former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula in Tasmania. It is one of Australia’s most significant heritage sites. It has a tragic history both in the convict era and in modern times.
Most people who go to Port Arthur travel from Hobart to the site. Port Arthur is about a 1 hour and 30 minute drive from Hobart. If you are staying in Hobart, I recommend you get up early to make sure you are at Port Arthur when the gates open at 9am.
If you are in Hobart you can take a day tour that includes Port Arthur as well as other sites along the Tasman Peninsula. The other options are to hire a car and drive yourself. There is plenty to see on the trip and a hire car allows you to stop when you want. Buses also run from Hobart to the site.
We stayed at Eaglehawk Neck which is 25 minutes from Port Arthur so that we could be at the site when the gates opened. This allowed us to get a car park close to the entrance. It also meant that there was only one person in the queue to get tickets before us. At about 2pm the main entrance was so busy with people arriving that we struggled to get through to the exit. There is also accommodation around Port Arthur.
Your Port Arthur entrance ticket is valid for two consecutive days. It includes:
By being at the site at 9am for opening, it gave us an opportunity to get photos without crowds of people. On the day we visited a P&O cruise ship was anchored in the bay and the passengers disembarked throughout the day making it busier than usual.
The general admission to the site is AUD$37 for an adult. I recommend you consider paying the extra for one of the other tours. These include:
Port Arthur was not originally a penal settlement, but rather it was a timber gathering camp using convicts to acquire timber logs for government projects. This first settlement was established in 1830.
Three years later in 1833, Port Arthur started to be used as a convict settlement for repeat offenders. Convicts from other Australian colonies would be sent to Port Arthur if they re-offended. Port Arthur was never used as a convict settlement for convicts when they first arrived in Australia.
Within seven years, in 1840, more than 2,000 people were at Port Arthur. This included soldiers and civilian staff and their families as well as convicts.
However, by 1853, convicts were no longer beings transported to Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land). Port Arthur was then transformed into a facility to house aging convicts and convicts that were physically and mentally ill.
It was not until 1870 that the settlement was closed.
The historical importance of Port Arthur was recognised in 2010 when it and 10 other historical sites that form the Australian Convicts Sites were World Heritage listed.
An additional tragic chapter was written into Port Arthur history on 28 April, 1996. On that day a lone shooter took the lives of 35 people and injured at least another 18 people.
When you do the guided tour of the site, the tour guides tell visitors of the shooting and that guests and employees lost their lives. They will also recommend you visit the memorial to pay your respects. There is no mention of the shooter’s name (out of respect, I have not mentioned the shooter’s name either).
The shooting changed Australia forever and also resulted in gun control being introduced into Australia. The gun laws included the banning of fully automatic and semi automatic firearms. It also included a mandatory 28 day cooling off period before getting a gun licence and you required a ‘genuine reason’ for owning a gun (self-defence was not an appropriate reason).
A gun buy-back also resulted in about 700,000 legal and newly made illegal guns being handed in and destroyed. There has not been a mass shooting in Australia since.
This tragic chapter in Port Arthur and Australia’s history is also one of largest mass shootings in the world.
The Memorial Garden includes a cross containing the names of those who lost their lives. It also includes a memorial pool. The memorial stands on the site of the Broad Arrow Cafe. 20 people lost their lives in the cafe. The memorial pool was created as a place of remembrance and reflection and when visiting Port Arthur, spend some time at the memorial to pay your respects.
The Penitentiary is the most imposing building and one of the first you see when you enter the Port Arthur site.
When it was in use, convicts were split into two groups in the Penitentiary. The convicts who were considered to be of ‘bad character’, were housed in cells in the two lower floors of the building. Better behaved convicts had a much better view on the top level of the building and had the benefit of being able to sleep in bunk beds. The lower two floors contained 136 cells while 480 convicts slept on the top floor.
The church sits above the Government Gardens and shows the amazing stonework that was crafted by convicts, many of them boys from the Point Puer Boys’ Prison. You can visit the boys prison while on the harbour cruise.
The church held an important place at the settlement as religion was considered an significant part of the rehabilitation process for the convicts, of which some 1,100 would attend Sunday services.
There are a number of sites to visit during your visit to Port Arthur.
Above: The Police Station sits just behind the Penitentiary
Above: The guard tower
Above: the Government Gardens
The Isle of the Dead is a small island close to Port Arthur. It is the final resting place for more than 1,000 convicts, military and civil officers, women and children who were buried there between 1833 and 1877.
The Isle of the Dead is accessed from the harbour cruise and is a guided tour. If you want to visit the Isle of the Dead make sure you include it in your entrance ticket.
For more photos of the Isle of the Dead visit my Gallery.
Firstly, Port Arthur is a must see if you are visiting Tasmania. Give yourself a day to visit the site and if you are staying close by you might even want to join an evening ghost tour.
Practical tips for when you visit Port Arthur are:
Comments: 29
A great post about visiting Port Arthur. Although I’ve been to Hobart, I have never been to visit the Port Arthur site. Thanks for putting this together.
Thanks Julie. Port Arthur is definitely worth a visit.
i have heard about this on one of my tours in sydney! thanks for sharing!it is eerily beautiful!
Great post, I’ve never heard of Port Arthur before but I’l be sure to put it on the Tasmania itinerary when we get around to going 😀
Glad to learn something new. I have never heard about it before. Your detailed description and photographs made the reading interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks Chirasree.
Oh my goodness! This place looks so amazing! The architecture is stunning. Would love to visit this place someday
It’s definitely worth visiting if you are heading to Tassie.
What beautiful buildings. Very informative post, thank you for sharing.
Great and informative post! I’ve been to Sydney before, but I can’t wait to go back to Australia and explore more – adding Port Arthur to my list! 🙂
Thanks Luda. It is definitely worth adding to your list of places to visit.
I’ve never been to Tasmania, but I didn’t expect architecture like that! Looks so interesting. Good idea to go early in the morning, love the photos without other people on it!
It’s an amazing place to visit and yes it is definitely worth getting there early. We were so happy to get photos without heaps of people in them.
The hollow shells of the buildings look so atmospheric. I particularly like your picture of the church and the graveyard. What a wonderful place steeped in history.
Thanks Jade.
What an amazing place to visit. I love the architecture and the history to it.
It is amazing to visit.
That looks like such a fantastic trip! We’re trying to check off as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites as we can.. and I have a feeling we’ll have to see this one <3
I love to visit these old cities and ruins, my friends even make fun of me because of that! But I just love to walk around and think about everything that those walls already passes through and saw, if only they could speak though!
The walls of Port Arthur would have a lot of stories to tell.
Being the daughter of a history teacher, I really love to visit castles and historical sites. Yet I’ve never been to Port Arthur and I didn’t even know this place, shame on me! I love that tickets are valid for two consecutive days, especially because there’s so much to see and do!
You could definitely spent 2 days there.
This was such an interesting read. I know literally northing about Tasmania- so the history (recent and historic) are fascinating. Isle of the dead sounds a bit creepy… but I’d go.
The history is definitely fascinating. Isle of the Dead is definitely worth a visit.
Your photos are incredible! As a history nerd, I was completely geeking out at this post. Such fascinating and somewhat tragic stories behind this area. I could spend hours just admiring this architecture.
Thanks Kate. You can definitely get so immersed in the history of Port Arthur.
What a great read and introduction to Port Arthur! I didn’t realise it was World Heritage listed, either. Very sobering to be reminded of the tragic shooting back in 1996. I remember that when I was a child, it was dreadful. Aside from that, Port Arthur looks like a fascinating and great historical place to visit. Love your photos too, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Alyse. I remember the shooting so vividly so I really wanted to visit the memorial. But the site is amazing.
What an incredibly insightful and thorough post thank you for sharing. I haven’t had the opportunity to travel to Australia yet but hopefully one day I’ll get to and I’ll ad this to my list!