Hobart

Australian Border Control eventually scanned and searched us at Hobart. Beware the biohazard offense! What if Grandma tucked a breakfast roll “for later” into her day bag? That would result in a $400 on the spot fine and maybe her AUS Visa would be revoked. No worries, Mate. Grandma’s bag was searched and passed inspection.

Hobart could only get better. I ruled out visiting any of the convict sites. I travel for beauty and intrigue, not to pay $30 to watch a video and hear a guide tell me about the petty crimes convicts were sentenced for and the subsequent hardships they faced. 

An aside about Australia’s convict past: between 1788 and 1868 over 162,000 convicts were transported to South Australia from the UK. Their sentences varied, but it was difficult to return to England after serving their sentences. The prisoners, mostly from the working class, had been sentenced for crimes as minor as petty larceny, being too drunk in public, talking smack about the Crown, or getting pregnant out of wedlock. The British Empire needed a biddable underclass to colonize Australia and convicts supplied them with cheap labor. Breaking up families was a means to social control, just as with enslaved people in the US. Convict labor developed the agriculture and built the infrastructure for South Australian cities. In comparison, New Zealand was always intended to be a colony of free settlers. Having a convict ancestor is an Aussie point of pride; see how tough my people are. In Hobart there is a searchable database to help the user identify possible convict antecedents. 

I looked at old buildings in the suburbs and city center. From the bus driver I learned two anecdotes to share. First, fifty years ago a ship crashed into the bridge over the River Derwent, causing four cars to fall into the water and sinking the vessel for all time. The bridge was rebuilt around the sunken ship because it could not be hauled up.

The second story involves early public transit in Hobart. The Hobart tram was built to look like the beloved double decker trams of London. But unfortunately the trams kept tipping over. (JG likes this story.) So the city only has buses now. There were schoolchildren in uniform taking public buses, so their summer holiday is over.  

I overheard three arguments in about an hour. First, a security guard in a High-Vis vest shouted at three teenage boys in school uniforms to return the wallet. They replied with a shower of profanity and ran away. Second, a chemist (pharmacist or pharmacy tech) was trying to soothe a young man having a breakdown in the shop. The raggedly dressed, unwashed man, who was losing his unbelted trousers to gravity, needed medication, had a script, and had spilled his cash out all over the floor. Swearing ensued. The chemist was kindly helping him even though the man was behaving erratically. Third, a woman and a man were arguing. She began walking away from him and he unleashed a loud stream of verbal abuse. She got away from him. I thought, in all our staid NZ cities combined I had not heard so much conflict in public. 

So Australia does seem different. After I had seen so much rowdiness in public, I better understood the Border Control’s severity.