Mount Wellington

is a mountain in the southeast coastal region of Tasmania, Australia. It is the summit of the Wellington Range and is within the Wellington Park reserve. Located at the foothills of the mountain is much of Tasmania's capital city, Hobart. The mountain rises to 1,271 metres above sea level and is frequently covered by snow, sometimes even in summer, and the lower slopes are thickly forested, but crisscrossed by many walking tracks and a few fire trails. There is also a sealed narrow road to the summit, about 22 kilometres from Hobart central business district. An enclosed lookout near the summit has views of the city below and to the east, the Derwent estuary, and also glimpses of the World Heritage Area nearly 100 kilometres west. From Hobart, the most distinctive feature of Mount Wellington is the cliff of dolerite columns known as the Organ Pipes

This is one of the convict sites of two and as the handout suggests, in the early 1830’s, a service in the chapel of the Van Diemen’s Land Prisoners’ Barracks Penitentiary was far from a serene and holy experience. The building, in the shape of a cruciform, was designed by John Lee Archer to make additional space for the growing number of convicts arriving in the colony. The design included thirty-six solitary confinement cells beneath the chapel floor, which were later declared inhuman. The Penitentiary is home to incredible stories of crime and punishment in Van Diemen’s Land, with courtrooms and underground tunnels, to the chapel, solitary cells, and still-working gallows of this fascinating historic convict site, which later became Hobart’s old Gaol and Supreme Court.

We were given a guided tour and a video presentation of the early settlors and the customs that time. It was interesting to understand how things were those time.

The guides were fantastic providing with loads of historical information. It was hard to imagine the time where there were actual convicts in the within these buildings and to see the walls and the drawings, very thought provoking experience.

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is a museum located in Hobart, Tasmania. The museum was established in 1846, by the Royal Society of Tasmania, the oldest Royal Society outside England.

There were fantastic old black and white photographs and the paints. I would highly recommend that you visit this place when you have about two hours at the least to spend here.