Life and Death at Port Arthur
My 2 week tour of the Tasman isle, less than 1 month prior to the Port Arthur massacre, was THE most educational undertaking I have ever experienced and the irony of the tragedy that followed, one I'll never forget.
Every town/city we visited, from North to South, is a treasured monument to the colonial era that established Tasmania, complete with historic buildings and museums and all sorts of memorabilia associated with those times.
I recall, I passed on the Shot-Tower tour as I was completely exhausted and needed to rest up in preparation for our full tour the next day; we'd all purchased tickets to Port Arthur's 100th "Beating Retreat" ceremony.
After arriving at Port Arthur we spent the best part of the day-light touring yet more historic buildings and museums, but this particular tour was the most confronting to me.
As I poured over the plaques attached to contraptions that were used to torture prisoners, who were 99% indigenous, I realised just how horrific we humans can be. From this moment forward everything seemed so surreal as it unfolded before my eyes.
By late afternoon, we found ourselves stepping aside from the path to let large squads of Military Police march by, presumably toward their posts in preparation for the ceremony.
I over heard some people wearing suits at the Broad Arrow Cafe saying they sold more than 3,000 tickets.
As we departed the cafe, I watched a large group of actors walk by dressed in colonial military costumes and noted the stark contrast to the modern military garb we passed earlier.
Being somewhat short in stature, when the ceremony first began all I could see far and wide was armpits! So I convinced my friends to scale the side of a cliff for a better viewing position.
For the benefit of those who haven't been there, Port Arthur is completely enclosed by cliffs on all but one side, where shark infested ocean meets the land - being the very reason it was selected for a prison site - and proudly demonstrated during the course of the ceremony.
It was explained that Beating Retreat was a custom of drum-beating to signal a shift change to guards who were stationed at, still today, the only narrow entrance to the port. The drumming demo was a spectacular affair, there must have been more than 200 actors performing, the theatrics of which certainly pleased the crowd.
It was further explained, escape by ocean had only ever been attempted by one indigenous chap, whose story was then acted out before us by a white man painted brown. I watched on with disgust as the death of the painted man was played out. I couldn't believe the crowd actually cheered at the end.
Then the Mayor of Hobart and a few other dignitaries made a brief appearance, although I don't remember if they spoke at all because I was still in a state of disbelief over what I had just witnessed.
The ceremony was abruptly ended with a battalion of soldiers firing their guns over the ridge behind us (in the very direction of Martin Bryant's home, no less) and cannon shots were fired off from the beach.
If I was asked today what I thought triggered a gun-happy red-neck to play clay-pigeons with the tourists at Port Arthur only weeks afterwards, I would still point my finger squarely at this overwhelming military spectacle that played out year after year, right next door to Bryant's family home.
Still in shock from the ceremony, I blindly followed as my friends led the way down from our vantage point and shuffled me into a queue for the evening Ghost Tour.
A wave of sadness came over me when it was announced the tour would be delayed due to a traffic jam at the infamous bottle-neck entrance which had prevented an ambulance from attending a guest who suffered a heart attack in the car park. Meanwhile the rest of the queue muttered disapprovingly over the delay.
Perhaps, by this stage, I was in the wrong frame of mind but the Ghost Tour was not scary at all, mostly due to poor or ill-timed theatrics, but when we entered the remains of the prison hospital I quickly became horrified.
To sum it up, of some 30 or more cells we visited, the story-teller only told of one white person who died there, apparently in a somewhat more dignified manner than his many indigenous counterparts.
By the end of Ghost Tour I was full up to eyeballs with everybody's "entertainment" over the crimes against humanity that took place in this terrifying, barbaric, sinister and profoundly disturbing monument to mass indigenous slaughter, called Port Arthur.
It would appear the yearly Beating Retreat ceremony ended on its 100th birthday. And I can't rightly claim to be disappointed, how this form of entertainment went on for so long is totally beyond my comprehension.
What I found interesting is, today, you will find no record of it anywhere, no record of the Ghost Tours, no newspaper archives depicting even the last ceremony which was the largest of its kind in history, and not a single photo posted online by the tens of thousands who attended over the years. Every trace of this historic event has all but vanished into thin air, as if it never happened at all.
Evidently, the great crimes against white tourists that unfolded there only weeks later will not be celebrated with as much glee and reverence as the great crimes practiced on a daily basis against the indigenous people of Australia in that same place.
I'm guessing we won't be seeing front row tickets to the historical re-enactment of that tragedy any time in the future.
That was my greatest lesson about Life and Death at Port Arthur.