Hello, 2022

Happy New Year. We've all been saying since 2016 'Let's hope it's better than last year' and that hasn't worked at all, so let's just aim to get to December 31 and be able to say 'Well, that was better than we expected' - ok?

I will also aim to pop in here more regularly, despite not really being much of a travel writer any more, for obvious reasons. I faded out towards the end of last year, waiting for a blog overhaul, but that still hasn't happened, so on we soldier.

One of my Christmas presents was a subscription to Storyworth, which I'd already heard good things about, and my second question to answer (chosen by the Baby) is 'What was your first big trip?'. That's a fun, if frustrating, one to answer because it was a round-world cruise to England, via both Suez and Panama, taking about six months. Fabulous! Except, it was 1957 and I was only three, and remember very little about it - mainly, getting trapped in the outside toilet at my grandparents' house in Farnham.

But, doing a little research, I have found, naturally, connections. Our first leg was the very last voyage of the RMS Mataroa which, after delivering us to Southampton via the Panama Canal, was then sent to be scrapped at Faslane. She had been built in 1922 at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, across from where the Silver Wind was moored on our 2019 Silversea cruise, and which had just been closed down. The ship, originally called Diogenes, carried passengers/immigrants to NZ and Australia, was a troop ship during the war, and then returned to tourism afterwards - though in 1949 she carried a contingent of the nearly 600 'Lost Children' from UK orphanages and foster homes who were brought to NZ in one of those shockingly authoritarian decisions that are sadly so common all over the world. (Also sent to Australia and Canada, many of them were maltreated, and, much later, officially apologised to.)

I had thought that our return voyage, on the SS Orcades via the Suez - a trip so hot everyone apparently slept up on deck - returned us to Lyttelton; but it turns out, from a random photo that my father usefully labelled, that we actually got off in Sydney and flew home from there. So that was my first flight, and not the joyride I had on Air NZ's new plane when I was about 14. And the Orcades? Well, I discovered a big model of that bit of my personal history in the Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour, when I arrived there on the Azamara Journey in 2017...

Wars and whales

Despite (I know!) not being, like so much of the rest of the world, locked down, isolated or in any way confined to the premises, I have still managed to give due attention to social media. So I have followed the TikTok sea shanty thing right from the first post of Nathan Evans singing solo, through all the fun additions, one by one, to the collective, multinational and very catchy masterpiece it is now.

Though I had heard the Wellerman song before that, I wasn't aware that it is, in fact, local to New Zealand. People have, naturally, done the research and found that the British-born Weller brothers sailed from Sydney to Otago Harbour in 1831 and set up a whaling station there. (Their ship, the Lucy May, was later crewed by Herman Melville.)

The Wellers were the first Europeans in the area, even before Dunedin was founded (by the Scots - Nathan is also Scottish, by the way). They did very well until the whaling industry collapsed in 1840, simply because there weren't any right whales to be found any more. Funny, that.

There's a rock named after the brothers just off the coast right by the road that runs out along the Otago Peninsula, so I have sailed past it, with Azamara, in 2017. Returning to the ship after a railway outing earlier that day along Taieri Gorge, I went into the Maritime Museum at Port Chalmers, alongside where the ship was moored, and had a good nose around. Without a doubt, I would have seen Weller Brothers artefacts there, but was more taken by Shackleton's typewriter and Mark Twain's complaint about the Union Steam Ship Co's Flora: "the boat was the foulest I have ever been in" which made me feel pretty smug about Azamara Journey. I was also fascinated to see a bit of debris from (see below) the Japanese attack on Darwin.

I was also driven past Wellers Rock, again without realising, on my way out to Taiaroa Head and the seal and penguin colonies there, on a TRENZ tour the following year. After our drive through that property, we finished up at the royal albatross colony to coo at the big fluffy chicks, before dutifully admiring the 1886 Armstrong Disappearing Gun at the underground fort there - built because of the fear of, believe it or not, invading Tsarist Russians. 

*cough* Coincidentally, just last week, I popped across the harbour to Devonport for a bit of a Segway, and we went up to North Head to look at the gun emplacement there, also built because of that threat of a Russian invasion in the late 1880s. And *ditto* yesterday, I stood in a similar, but much bigger, gun pit at Stony Batter right here on Waiheke, where in 1948, somewhat tardily, they finished installing a 9.2 inch gun to fire at the Japanese, who really had been poking around NZ during WW2, after the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin in 1942. After a single test firing in 1951, the gun and other equipment were eventually broken up and sold for scrap, and some of the sheet metal was bought by - the Japanese. Who are also, incidentally, one of the few whaling nations left in the world.

So, we've gone from a sea shanty connecting people in many nations, to serious guns installed at huge effort and expense to repel invasions, at a time when the physical borders of many countries are shut tight... it's a funny old world, eh?

Silver Muse cruise, Day Four - It's Australia's fault

With thanks to Silversea for this cruise

Silver Muse sailed last night from Stewart Island along Foveaux Strait and around the bottom of the South Island, with the plan to enter Doubtful Sound first thing this morning, and then Milford Sound this afternoon. As has so often happened on our cruises - on most people's cruises, I'm guessing - the weather got in the way. There were 50 knot winds and 3 metre waves, plus low cloud and rain, and the captain decided that it wasn't safe to try to enter either Sound. 

It was a great shame, and disappointing to everyone - though rather less so to us, since we did this route with Azamara a couple of years ago, and of course we've been to Milford a number of times over the years. For the foreigners, though, of whom there are very many on board, it was their only chance to see the Sounds' properly spectacular scenery, and they had been looking forward to it. For some, it was their second, and even third, attempt. Instead, their only consolation was watching the little pilot boat bouncing around in the waves as the NZ pilot attempted to leave the ship. He'd have had to stay aboard till Burnie in Tasmania if they couldn't get him off - I imagine that wouldn't have been a tragedy for him.

I heard several Aussies complaining bitterly about the let-down of the weather, and only just restrained myself from explaining, loudly and clearly, that it was all due to the big H that's been parked over Oz for so long, delivering all that hot, dry weather that's been causing their dreadful fires, and simultaneously condemning NZ to unseasonably cool, wet weather. But, dear reader, for the sake of trans-Tasman cordial relations, I restrained myself.

Team Trivia today introduced some ethical grey areas - first, sneakily corrected answers by the quizmaster (Roy Perez, our Cruise Director, from Cuba) as he prowled around; and also, when you decide on one answer, and then change to another, and then find the first was correct, you don't count it, right? But Jeff from California, and Anne from Scotland disagreed, and insisted our score was a mighty 15/20 instead of the usual 14 I thought it should be. Sample questions from today: how much does a litre of water weigh; which Italian leader was afraid of the Devil's evil eye; what is the standard length of the English military call-up; and what did the Montgolfier brothers invent?

Dinner tonight was at La Dame, which is one of only two restaurants you have to pay for on board Silversea: USD80 each for super-attentive service in a tiny venue with a classic French menu and and an equally classically superior French MC/sommelier. I had escargots, mushroom velouté (ie soup), Dover sole and Grand Marnier soufflé, all of it beautifully presented and delicious.

Naturally, as we headed away from New Zealand into the Tasman Sea, the sun came out and the evening was blue and bright. Ahead, a day's sail away, lie heat and sunshine in Australia. Bring it on!

Silver Spirit Norway, Day 3 - Opining on the fiords

With thanks to Silversea for this Norway cruise

So today was the start of the great test. Regular readers 😄 will remember that on my Azamara cruise from Wellington to Sydney last year, when we got to Fiordland, the Norwegian captain was disparaging of what we Kiwis consider some of NZ’s most spectacular scenery. “We have this in Norway,” he said, “but the colourful little towns in our fiords make it prettier.” New Zealand’s fiords have no colourful little towns. We just have untouched nature. It’s what we do:

Yes, it stung, I admit it. So, here, and now, I get to see the Norwegian version for the first time. We woke this morning on the final approaches to the town of Flåm, permanent population 450, at the end of an offshoot of Norway’s longest fiord. Fjord, I suppose I should be writing, since they gave us the word.

And yes, it was pretty: little pointy-roofed red and white houses along the edge of the water, surrounded by birch trees and tucked below soaring, sheer, rocky cliffs topped with Indian snow. Being June, there’s lots of green: mown hayfields, wildflowers, fruit trees, pines. Our first obligation was to take the Flåm Railway, which passes through 20 hand-dug tunnels to climb the steepest track in the world, criss-crossing the tumbling Flåm River into which a succession of high-as waterfalls feed. Yes, ‘spectacular’ covers it.

We got off at one point to look at and try to photograph a roaring waterfall that instantly spat spray all over everyone’s lenses, while a woman in red on a cliff top beside it swayed and gyrated to music for about five minutes, pretending to be some sort of waterfall nymph. Just the twelve times a day, through the summer, if you’re wondering. Then we got to Myrdal at the top, where we went into the hotel and ate waffles with jam and cream (which I had written about from research for a story a few months ago, so it was closure for me) and then I went for a wander to look at the lake and the waterfalls before we took the train back down again.

Flåm has a permanent population of 450, but a huge volume of annual visitors, mostly from cruise ships like ours, although today there was also a long line of coaches disgorging what mostly seemed to be Chinese tourists, as well as an assortment of nationalities from Bergen on the train. So tourism is now the main industry, and there are lots of souvenir shops (heavy on trolls, reindeer skins and cold-weather clothing), cafés, bakeries and accommodation. There’s also a good (free!) little museum about the building of the railway line and what looks like a vertical zigzag road up the side of the fjord. Also, some nifty-looking home-made vehicles for using on the railway line, some developed from motorbikes, others just bicycles.

Then, with a bit of a sigh of obligation, I set off on foot back up the valley towards the next village but one, where I’d spotted a pretty church from the train. It was 3.5km there, gradually uphill, on feet already complaining from cobbles and unsuitable shoes, but I was compensated by the tumbling, turquoise, gloriously clear river, the pretty wildflowers growing along its banks, the cute houses with their neat gardens and orchards, the peace and quiet and, most impressively, the sheer cleanliness of it all. NOT ONE BIT OF LITTER at all! So very commendable.

So I got to the church where, being Sunday, there was a service taking place, sat briefly in the graveyard, and then route-marched back down to Flåm, sore of foot but pleased to have had the exercise, fresh air, sunshine, and taste of nature - although still reserving judgement on the fiord/fjord issue. A soak in a Jacuzzi on deck back on Silver Shadow helped with the barking dogs; and then there was the sailaway on a golden sunny evening, along the fjord with its waterfalls, little villages by the shore, and mysteriously random houses perched high on perilously steep hillsides. There was pizza on the deck as it all slid past; then work in the library high above the bow with great visibility but deeply regrettable jazz musak, which was, later on, mitigated by a tenor singing Nessun Dorma and other gratifyingly populist (and tuneful) songs in the theatre before bedtime.

Highpoint today was being asked by Steve McCurry to take photos of him on deck with his wife and baby daughter, on his huge and heavy Nikon. Slightly diluted by his clearly not remembering me from our half-hour interview the day before yesterday; but probably payback for my having described him in that post as ‘physically forgettable’.

Shackleton, Scott, shrapnel and Sholes*

Skipping over for the moment the slight awkwardness of finding myself having to write advertorial for the Azamara cruise line straight after having sailed with Silversea - it's not ideal, people, the only comparison possible is not flattering to Azamara, however "luxurious" they claim to be - I was diverted to discover, nevertheless, some connections. The Silversea cruise to Antarctica, as regular readers (gidday, Queen!) will remember, was heavy on Shackleton, what with visiting his grave at Grytviken on South Georgia, and then snooping around Elephant Island and all.

Well, it turns out - and hooray for this blog, which is now indispensable as my defacto memory - that my Azamara cruise almost a year ago had its own Shackleton links too. In Akaroa, strolling back to the waterfront after my visit to the delightfully idiosyncratic - and also lovely to look at - Giant's House, I stopped to take a photo of one of that little town's characteristic pretty wooden villas. It was only then that I saw the plaque by the gate and read that it was the birthplace of Frank Worsley, the magnificently skilled captain of the Endurance on Shackleton's doomed 1914-16 exploration. It was down to him that, when six of them left the rest of the ship's crew on Elephant Island and made their run for rescue in the hastily-adapted lifeboat James Caird, he steered them, despite rough weather and almost continuous cloud cover, straight to South Georgia. Impressive. If he'd missed by even a smidgen, the boat would have headed into the South Atlantic and the whole lot of them would have died.

And then, strolling again back towards the Journey at our next stop, Dunedin, I went into the Maritime Museum in Port Chalmers and found, amongst other miscellaneous items (including a bit of shrapnel from the Japanese attack on Darwin - that's how miscellaneous) a standard issue Overseas Expeditionary Service Sholes typewriter, claimed to have been used by not only Shackleton, but also by the fated Scott. A bit more primitive than the Imperial I learned to type on, but clearly a relation.

Well, at least now, having been reminded about other kinds of cruise maritime journey, I can type on, and be a bit more complimentary about Azamara. Thank you once again, random connections.**

* Real name, as you see in the photo - so no, I didn't omit the ellipsis. Probably a good thing they went out of business before these sweary times, eh?

**Which can also be more than a bit creepy. Only this morning, reading about Chicago's blizzard and mayor Rahm Emanuel's reassurance that the city can handle it, I was remembering having shaken his hand at IPW in 2014. And when I publish today's post, what does Blogger throw up at the bottom of it as a suggestion to read? Sinister...

Ship to shore

It's always the same, at the end of a cruise. You've been fussed over right from the start, it's all smiles and chocolates and invitations to indulge - then, several days before the final port, the rot begins with departure instructions appearing in the room, labels for the luggage, timetable for disembarking... It always feels too soon. And finally, on the last morning, you're just an impediment to their readying the ship for the new passengers. It's kind of hurtful. You suspect that all that friendliness has just been a front - which, of course, it is. Welcome back to the real world.

And so we were bundled off the Azamara Journey at 9am and driven into the city across the splendid Anzac Bridge, for our part - I have to admit - leaving the ship behind without a backward glance, on to the next thing.

Which is, today anyway, boutique Sydney: suburbs far from the Bridge and the Opera House, with individual character, interesting oddities, and passionate people. We're based in Chippendale at the Old Clare Hotel, which has been converted from a former brewery and the pub next door, retaining much of its original structure, even down to some graffiti on the brickwork in what is now the entrance foyer, above an old safe with a bag on one shelf labelled 'Random crap'. Funky is, I think, the vibe they're going for.

The room is agreeably spacious after the snugness of our stateroom on the Azamara Journey - but some common difficulties persist. On the ship it was the coffin-like shower inside the cupboard of a bathroom; here, it's a roomy bathroom, but all made of glass, so until the steam gets going there is no privacy when showering, and, though the loo glass is frosted, there is no soundproofing. Kind of inhibiting - but since all the rooms are different, don't let that put you off staying here. Just avoid 117.

The position is great, with Spice Alley right alongside: a little lane filled with pan-Asian eateries serving through windows with shared eating spaces, hung with Chinese lanterns, decorated with murals, and busy as, everyone from students to suited businessmen. I had hot and crispy chicken ribs from Thai eatery Bang Luck; and though I learned rather more than I would have chosen to know about Otis, the son of the woman at the next table, the food was delicious, fuelling me up for the main event of the day, which was a Culture Scouts tour with Sophia.

She's an artist and enthusiast, exactly the right combination for exploring Chippendale which is full of art of all sorts, from vertical gardens to upper-end graffiti to galleries. We started with Central Park, a building with the world's tallest green wall, 34 storeys of happy plants; and then did a couple of galleries including White Rabbit, a private collection of large contemporary Chinese installations prowling with attendants happy to expatiate on their meanings. The one that mesmerised me, plastic boxes stuck on a wall with a half-circle of lights moving back and forth, throwing pretty shadows, was apparently all about impermanence and... well, a whole bunch of other stuff, apparently, that went in one ear and out the other. Wasn't it enough, just to be pretty?

The nice thing about walks like this is that it does make you look more closely at what's around you, and I was as taken by the peeling paint on an old brick Victorian house as I was with more deliberate art like the Aboriginal murals, traditional and modern, in nearby Redfern. This district has a history of racial violence (actual riots!) and crime, and is still a bit edgy, but being steadily gentrified from its previous 24/7 unsuitability for unescorted wandering. In other words, the disadvantaged indigenous people who were concentrated here have faded away - though The Block is still there. I don't mean that tediously over-excitable home renovation competition show on TV3, but an expanse of grass owned by the Aboriginal Housing Corporation that they want to build on, but have been stymied by resistance from the State government. Australia, eh. The dark side is always there. But at least they themed their Keep Out sign with the Aboriginal flag...

Moving on into Redfern's busy main street, we went into a deceptively blandly-named shop, Seasonal Concepts, which startled me with its hippo skull and just went on from there. It's a fabulous place, an artwork in its own right, filled with a gloriously eclectic collection of bizarre and beautiful things, displayed for discovery. Mounted zebra heads, 1950s coffee mugs, solar lanterns in Agee jars designed for Africa, furniture, antiques, collectibles. Proprietor Ken is always up for a natter about where he collected any item. 'Delight the Eye, Cheer the Heart' is the slogan; and it's true.

Then there was Chee Soon & Fitzgerald, another quirky little shop, specialising this time in 1950s Japanese kimono silks, rolls of dainty designs not much more than a foot wide; and other equally unusual fabrics, and china. The owner is a Kiwi from somewhere like Darfield, no doubt quite correct in his decision 30 years ago that Sydney was much more tolerant of and conducive to his somewhat alternative lifestyle than inland Canterbury.

And finally Sophia took us to The Bearded Tit, a bar that's self-consciously quirky and fairly rude, but fun all the same: a loo where the walls are covered in Jesus portraits, for example, crocheted woollen penises in the window, and a skeleton behind the bar, appropriately enough standing right next to the spirits. It was a good tour, I enjoyed it - you really can't beat wandering around with a local, especially when they have a particular interest, like Sophie and art. Recommended.

The day ended with dinner, just across the road at Olio - not Italian (so dated) but Sicilian. The hapuka was good and so was the millefoglie afterwards though, to be honest, I was so flattered by the waitress thinking from my millefeuille-influenced pronunciation that I was French, that it could have tasted like plaster and I wouldn't have noticed.

Azamara Journey - Sydney

As promised, Captain Johannes eased us past the Opera House this morning right on 10am. Everyone was on deck for the entry to Sydney Harbour, glimpsing first the Harbour Bridge above the coastal suburbs, then the city skyline, and then, as we entered the harbour, the whole classic panorama of tower, skyscrapers, Opera House and bridge laid out for us (jostling somewhat at the railings) to view and photograph. The weather, while warm, was a bit dull and grey, and the tiles on the roof of the Opera House appeared a little dingy in the low light – but it’s always a splendid sight.

Invisible Cruise Director Tony, who has been a touch more visible lately, treated us to a short lecture full of dates, facts and figures as we sailed in. When I asked afterwards, politely, why he hadn’t done something similar for, say, Milford Sound, he said quite bluntly, “Well, there isn’t much to say, is there?” Ditto for the other ports on the cruise. Apparently Azamara only does an arrival commentary for a few ‘iconic cities’ like here and Stockholm. Pft.

Anyway, it was lovely to be back here again, and I started at Darling Harbour where, in the Maritime Museum that I flitted through, I was surprised and pleased to find a connection: a big model of the SS Orcades, on which I sailed back to NZ from England in 1957 – my last crossing of the Tasman, before last week.

On a mission to buy a wedding present for (Aussie) Daughter #3, I powered through the central city – deeply impressed by local pedestrians keeping efficiently and uniformly to the left – and finally found what I wanted in a gallery at The Rocks, that charming and authentically old and architecturally interesting area at the base of the Harbour Bridge. It’s a lovely place to wander through, all stone steps, narrow cobbled lanes and tempting bars and restaurants, as well as lots of interesting shops and galleries. Good old Sydney. Who cares about the odd thunderstorm?

Azamara Journey - At Sea 3

There are two sorts of cruise passenger: those who love days at sea as an excuse not to do anything at all except eat and snooze; and those who see them purely as a necessary, and quite boring, evil. To placate the latter there are extra activities laid on, so today I attended the Captain’s Chat first of all.

He is (I asked) still cheerfully unrepentant about giving the NZ marine forecast people a hard time – “I have lost all faith in Kiwi forecasters!” – and now jokily relies on Siri for his weather predictions in his PA announcements. Not that, he admitted, he would have done anything different back at Tauranga if he’d been given more accurate information about the storm and sea conditions.

Then there was a lecture on Australia’s dark history of transportation – a subject always good for some horrifying facts and figures: 300 lashes with a cat o’ nine tails was pretty standard on the ships coming out, laying the bones bare with just 100; in Tasmania men running alongside the jigger acted as the engine for a railway; a full quarter of the convicts on board the second transportation fleet died at sea; it didn’t end till 1868 in Western Australia.

And then he moved onto the topic of the treatment of Aboriginals (no excuse for the several incorrect spellings of the word, by the way): “Not a pretty story”. Their population in Tasmania was reduced, in 1873, to just one, Truganini, who died three years later. The ‘Keep Australia White’ campaign of the first half of the 20^th century today sounds (though this American professor chose not to make the connection) alarmingly like current news.

Next I did a galley tour, full of steam and stainless steel and spotless white uniforms: 59 cooks, 5 kitchens, 24-hour activity which, during the tour, involved much stirring, frying, rolling and cutting. Of course, by the time it finished, it was lunchtime and I had to eat some of it – for form’s sake, naturally.

Afterwards there was art: an attempt to do a version of an Aboriginal dot painting that was not a great success, thanks in equal part to having to use a fancy brush instead of a stick; to having to listen to nerve-jangling, apparently inescapable and absurdly inappropriate musak (Frank Sinatra) given that the average age on this ship is 63; and to a total lack of talent on my part. But I learned to respect the inspiration and dexterity of the original artists. (My pale imitation consigned without regret to the rubbish bin.)

Outside, the pool deck was well used through the afternoon by sunbathers, snoozers and readers, with an alarming number of tats on full display (remember: 63). On the jogging track above, serious women in stretch pants swirled around above the recumbent forms below, presumably keeping count of their revolutions in their heads: 13 to cover a mile. I wondered: if they jogged instead of walked, would they have to do more circuits to make up for the ship moving below them with each stride? Or would going first with the ship’s direction, and then against it, cancel each other out?

Dinner tonight was at Prime C on the top deck, one of the two specialty restaurants on board, which are not included in the fare (so thanks, Azamara, for hosting us). It was a very classy affair, from the décor through the service to the food itself, which was beautifully cooked and presented. Chateaubriand, since you ask. Delicious, and so tender!

Finally, tomorrow being the last full day of this cruise, there was the Crew Parade – a cheesy affair, but irresistible, especially on a small ship, where so many of the faces are recognisable. Captain Johannes was jolly, and keen to share how many passengers are staying on board, or have signed up already for further cruises. The ambiance was so friendly that it was even more of the shame that the mood was so totally wrecked five minutes later by sodding jazz on the piano.

Azamara Journey - Hobart

We woke this morning in Hobart, Tasmania, and scurried ashore without breakfast to avoid the large queues at immigration that actually didn’t eventuate. Never mind, it was nice to be back in Tassie again. Hobart has a pretty waterfront, with lots of historic buildings still in use, picturesque fishing boats ditto, and even some old sailing ships (don’t know).

I boarded a camouflaged catamaran and sat on a plaster sheep for a half-hour ride up the Derwent River – I was going to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, and they pride themselves there on being idiosyncratic, hence the boat. It’s a private collection, and isn’t included on the Azamara excursion options in case anyone is offended. Certainly there is some very rude stuff in there: large and obvious (I’m thinking of the gallery comprising a long line of plaster casts of women’s genitalia – which made me, and I’m sure every other women viewing it, wince at the thought of removing the plaster afterwards) and some of it sneaky.

These silver sardine tins, with their pretty botanical features, for example – it was only when I enlarged my photo of three of them that I noticed how indecent they are.

I wasn’t a big fan of Cloaca, which is four large glass containers hanging beneath pipes and tubes that feed them a faecal concoction that emits farts and periodically has to be excreted. Hard to imagine who would be. But there was plenty of lovely stuff there too, in all media, from all times and cultures, big and small, obscure and approachable; and all explained on a nifty cellphone-type guide. Hobart is lucky to have it.

The building messes with your head, though: it’s like the Tardis, and impossible to work out how all the galleries fit together. I've no idea how it looks from the outside.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” was the verdict of the pre-Baby Boomer woman sitting next to me as I waited afterwards for the ferry back to town. I think it pretty much goes without saying that if that expression trips comfortably off your tongue, MONA is not meant for you.

At the town’s Female Factory, the initial impression is that there’s nothing there: so it’s essential to pay for the Heritage Tour. Then you get someone like John showing you around the three yards that remain, empty spaces behind high sandstone walls. He told vivid stories about the lives of the inmates that brought the place to horrifying life – no dramatic exaggerations, just bare facts. Like, after 3 to 6 months being incarcerated in the hold of a transport ship on minimum provisions, having to walk at 4am (lest the sight of 100 women inflame the passions of the town’s sex-starved sailors) seven kilometres uphill to the gates of the prison, where any child aged three or above was taken from its mother, often never to be seen again.

It was a dreadful, dreadful place. Tasmania’s history is so very dark. I’ve previously been to Port Arthur (“A holiday camp in comparison,” said John, who has also guided there) and to Sarah Island, and Brickendon and Woolmer – and that’s only the convict side of the story. The Aboriginal people fared even worse. None of it should be forgotten.

But there was fun today too, in the person of Nick Nickolas, an English magician/comedian I’ve seen performing on the waterfront in Auckland many times. His act in the cabaret theatre after dinner was familiar but as funny as ever and, yet again, knowing the sleight-of-hand tricks he had (not literally) up his sleeve was of no use whatsoever in figuring out how he did them. Excellent!