Isle of the Dead

Picture postcard perfect isn't it? But it wasn't always so. From 1830 to 1877 more than 12,500 convicts did 'hard time' at the Port Arthur penal colony on the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania. The peninsula was ideally suited as base for convict settlement due to it's topographic setting; even though it is a substantial and diverse land mass it clings desperately to the south east of Tasmania by a land bridge that is not more than 100 m wide.

For the convicts cast out of England in the early 1800's, this meant that once you had arrived on the peninsula there was little chance of getting off alive, unless you graciously accepted your punishment, put your back into the hard labor and dutifully served out the full term of your incarceration. Many refused to do so and, as such, paid the ultimate price.

Port Arthur and surrounds was a melting pot for the best and worst of society born of the womb of Mother England. Endearing adventurers, incredible architects and amazing engineers, together with their wives and families, threw their hat in the ring to help build this remarkable settlement in what must have felt like the most distant and darkest bowels of the known world. But, with the good came the bad and the bad came in their thousands.

Troubled children as young as 9 years of age were sent to Point Puer Boys' Prison while the adult penitentiary at Port Arthur became a seething, writhing cesspit of rapists, murderers, thieves, fraudsters and heretics. Needless to say, not all of the 12,500 convicts that arrived at Port Arthur managed to survive the full term of their incarceration. Some slipped away quietly in their sleep after battling malnutrition, dysentery or worse. With delusions of a successful escape, some slipped away quietly in the night only to be shot in the back by one of 25 soldiers or mauled by one of a dozen dogs that guarded the land bridge at Eaglehawk Neck. A great many died in anguish; descending into a state of lunacy when they fell through the cracks of the master plan, which was to reform and rehabilitate them into honest and abiding new citizens of Van Diemen's Land. 

But where did all the dead go? Worthy of no respect in life and deemed worthy of less still in death, over 1000 convicts were buried in unmarked graves on the southern side of the Isle of the Dead. 

Sharing this tiny land mass, though partitioned at a respectful distance from the damned convicts, were nearly 300 colonialists who's graves were adorned with elaborate tributes. So in death, as it was in life, the military and civilian officers and their families continued to lord over the filth of the mother country for what is now approaching 185 years. 

If that were not demeaning enough, consider this - the Google Earth image below clearly shows that the Isle of the Dead is no bigger than a football field. With nearly 300 grave sites accommodating civilian and military folk placed in neat, geometric rows one can surmise that there was not a great deal of room for the 1000 convicts. These, the scum of society, were therefore either buried on top of each other or vertically; slumped or standing depending on the size of the individual and the dimensions of the space available in which to dig them a hole. 

 

Considering all of the above, it should come as no surprise that there are more than a few well documented accounts of the paranormal at Port Arthur. A decade and half after it was closed, many of the convicts that died an untimely death are very likely still seeking the absolution that they were never granted in life.

To enable us, the tourists, to fully appreciate these untold stories the (exceptional) guides at Port Arthur offer tours of the penal settlement in the dead of night. They punctuate your lantern-lit journey with tales of strange occurrences and sightings that have been documented in years gone by. Some stories capture the deaths of inmates so agonised that their passing almost justifies or validates their right haunt us in the present. The tour is so comprehensive that the guides will even lock you in the torture cell; a cell where the worst inmates were held for up to 30 days in a tiny, cold, damp stone room that is darker than death itself.

However, what came as a massive surprise to me was that Port Arthur do not offer up what could only be described as the greatest challenge ever to the paranormal skeptic: the chance to spend a comfortless night on the Isle of the Dead. If you believed that you truly don't believe, then this would most certainly test your resolve.

I would go back to Port Arthur tomorrow for a dozen different reasons. If they were to offer me the chance to sleep on the Isle of the Dead I would be back there in a heartbeat.