|
| The narrow
neck of land between the Forestier and
Tasman Peninsulas known as Eaglehawk
Neck |
Eaglehawk Neck
Narrow isthmus of land near some of
Tasmania's most dramatic coastline.
'At Eaglehawk Neck there were constant patrols
day and night. Dogs were kept on platforms near
the main beach to alert the sentinels who, with
semaphores, were stationed along the peninsula,
and eleven dogs were chained at the narrowest
section to form a barrier.
'Attempts were made by desperate convicts to
avoid the hounds at Eaglehawk by swimming
through the surf and dodging through the
sandhills. Those few who successfully ran the
gauntlet of dogs and sentries mostly perished in
the jungle-like forest of the mountains.
'Only now and then did a touch of macabre
comedy come to Eaglehawk. A convict named
William Hunt, listed on the records as a former
strolling actor, attempted to escape in the skin
of a kangaroo. Two guards on picket duty saw
what seemed to be a 'boomer', a big old man
kangaroo, hopping determinedly across the Neck
and heading for the scrubland on Forestier's
Peninsula. One for the pot, they reckoned, but
as they raised their muskets the kangaroo
stopped in its tracks and in the impeccable
accents of Drury Lane called out, 'Don't shoot!
It's only me - Billy Hunt!''
Coming down out of the hills above Eaglehawk
Neck, and stopping at the viewing points beside
the road which offer dramatic views across
Eaglehawk and Pirate's Bays, it is worth
remembering that this was one of the most
effective natural prison gates ever invented.
For the convicts of Port Arthur, Eaglehawk Neck
was as dangerous and as difficult to cross as
the water's from Devil's Island or Alcatraz.
Today little is left of the convict history
of Eaglehawk Neck. However this allows the
visitor to focus on the remarkable natural
formations in the area. The tessellated
pavement, the Blowhole, the forests of huge
elkhorn kelp which lap against the coast,
Tasman's Arch and the Devil's Kitchen.
Located 79 km southeast of Hobart on the
Arthur Highway, Eaglehawk Neck is now a series
of tiny holiday retreats around a series of
remarkable natural wonders.
Eaglehawk Neck itself is a tie bar made of
sand carried by currents and waves from the
floors of Pirate's Bay to the east and Norfolk
Bay to the west. It ties Tasman to Forestier
Peninsula in a narrow run of land which is less
than 100 m wide.
The visitor entering Eaglehawk Neck from
Hobart first sees the views of the two bays
descends to the coast where at a car park
opposite the Lufra Holiday Hotel the most famous
escape across the Neck is recalled in a small
monument which reads: 'To mark the centenary of
the death of Martin Cash - Gentleman Bushranger
26th August 1877 and his escape from Port Arthur
across the Neck in 1843 with two companions,
Cavanagh and Jones. 27 August 1977'. The error
of dating seems to have remained undetected.
Cash was, by any measure, a remarkable
bushranger. Born at Enniscorthy, County Wexford,
Ireland in 1808 he was convicted of
house-breaking in 1827 and sentenced to seven
years' transportation. He arrived in Sydney in
1828 and shortly afterwards was assigned to work
in the Hunter district. He served out his time
without incident until he was granted his
ticket-of-leave.
In 1836 he engaged in some local cattle
duffing and before he could be apprehended had
fled to Van Diemen's Land where, in 1839, he was
convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven
years' hard labour. It soon became clear that
Cash had no intention of serving out his
sentence. He escaped three times in the next
three years. On his third escape Cash met up
with two other convicts and the trio began
bushranging along the road between Hobart and
Launceston. Because they rarely used violence
they gained a reputation as 'gentlemen
bushrangers' which saved Cash from the gallows
when he was finally captured. It was this
reputation for 'gentlemanly' conduct which
allowed Cash to become a rarity among Australian
bushrangers - he lived a full life and died of
old age.
After his recapture Cash was sentenced to
transportation for life and sent to Norfolk
Island for ten years. In March 1854 he married
another Irish convict, Mary Bennett, and later
that year he was granted a ticket-of-leave and
returned to Tasmania. For the next twenty years
he lived quietly working as a farmer and as the
overseer at Hobart's Botanic Gardens. He died at
his property near Glenorchy on 27 August 1877.
Things to see:
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| The
tessellated pavement at Eaglehawk Neck
|
The Tessellated Pavement
A short walk from the car park leads down to the
remarkable tessellated pavement. This unusual
geological formation, which gives the rocks the
effect of being rather neatly tiled by a giant,
is explained on a placard near the site.
'It is called the tessellated pavement. The
pavement appears tessellated (it's tiled)
because the rocks forming it were fractured by
earth movements. The fractures are in three
sets, one set runs almost north, another east
north east, and a third discontinuous set north
north west. These last two sets produce the
tiled appearance. The flatness of the pavement
is due to initial erosion by waves carrying sand
and gravel and nearer to the cliff, to chemical
action by sea water. The rocks which absorb sea
water during high tide dry out during low tide
causing salt crystals to grow and disintegrate
the rocks - a process which produces shallow
basins'. The placard notes that the information
has been provided by the Geology Department of
the University of Tasmania.
Doo Town
Beyond Eaglehawk Neck, on the way out to
Tasman's Arch, the Blowhole and the Devil's
Kitchen is the holiday village of Doo Town where
all the residents have tried to be witty with
the naming of their homes. There is a Gunadoo,
Doodle Doo, Love Me Doo, Doo Us, Doo Me, Doo
Nix, Wee Doo, Xanadu, Rum Doo and, the house
which reputedly started the fashion, Doo Little.
- a suitable name for a holiday home.
The natural features on the coast are a truly
remarkable.
|
| Tasman's Arch
|
Tasman's Arch
Tasman's Arch is a natural arch which is really
a greatly enlarged tunnel running from the coast
along a zone of closely spaced cracks and
extending inland to a second zone perpendicular
to the first. The roof at the landward end of
the tunnel has collapsed but the hole is too
large and the sides are too high to form a
blowhole. The tunnel was produced by wave
action.
Devil's Kitchen
The 60 metres deep Devil's Kitchen has been
formed by a similar process to that which has
created Tasman's Arch. Basically, if Tasman's
Arch collapsed, it would lead to the creation of
a landform like the Devils Kitchen.
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| The Devil's
Kitchen |
The rocks in which the Blowhole, Tasman's
Arch and the Devils Kitchen occur are permian in
age (about 250 million years old) and were
deposited as silt and sand on the floor of a
shallow sea. It is probably that ice floated on
the surface. Most of the pebbles from the ice
were dropped as it melted.
