Walking through more history

And a Happy New Year to everyone!

We are tucked up in a dear little caravan park at Triabunna, on the east coast of Tasmania, on a cloudy, rainy, sometimes sunny, but always windy January 1, 2013.



The 2011 carving outside the 1846 church.



Before we left Buckland, just a little way inland, we visited its famous little Anglican church. It’s famous because of its wonderful east window, which is believed to have been  made between 1350 and 1400 for Battle Abbey, built in Sussex, England, by William the Conqueror. When the abbey was torn down by Cromwell’s men, it is believed the window was buried for safety, later being sent to the first rector of St John the Baptist Church in Buckland (1846-48) by aristocratic friends, the Cecil family, in whose care it had been for hundreds of years.

The amazing thing is that the little church is not used much these days, but is open for visitors at all times, with a movement sensor light that comes on once one enters by the great wooden door; and there is a light on a time switch in the chancel to better illuminate the famous window.

And there’s no vandalism!

In the churchyard, as well as lots of graves dating from the 1800s, is a 2011 chainsaw sculpture of St John the Baptist being baptized by Jesus. It seems a bit incongruous but it is by the Tasmanian master of that kind of art, Eddie Freeman, whose work we saw at Legerwood.

Then on we came to Triabunna, making it our base for a few days, particularly while we explored Maria Island, an hour away by a small ferry. It was just an hour across a glassy bay to get there, but the wind and waves came up while we were there (10.30am to 4.30pm) and the return trip was very rough.



Cape Barren geese are everywhere on the island.



Maria Island is a fascinating place, having had two lots of convict use, then an Italian entrepreneur leased it late in the 1800s and started growing wine grapes and mulberry trees to make silk, built a hotel and a coffee palace, and even advertised the island as ‘Australia’s Riviera’, enticing people to come to visit. His enterprises eventually failed, and the Great Portland Cement Company built quite a big industrial centre there, with 500 workers, but it also failed at the Great Depression.



Some of the happy 'campers' in the penitentiary.



A few people kept farming there but by 1972 it had become a national park. People can camp there, or stay in the bunk-bed penitentiary. They have to take everything they need. .  and they do! . . . and can take bikes or hire them from the ferry operators.

We just went for the day and walked our little legs off. There are several great walks, some in the bush, and others around the clifftops and across open grasslands so we combined a couple to walk for about 4 hours, having our picnic lunch overlooking a dam built by the convicts in the 1800s to supply the settlement, Darlington, with water. It is still used.

Most of the convict buildings are still there, with interesting history boards sharing the stories and the remains of Diego Bernacchi’s enterprises are also still visible, as are the huge cement silos.

We had a nice little New Year’s Eve celebration with some people camped near us, including a Gold Coast couple who used to live in Kyogle, there were a few fireworks let off and a couple of yells at midnight, but otherwise Triabunna, a mussel, abalone and scallop fishing centre, remained fairly serene.