Tasmania: Welcome to the end of the line

Jack Straw's famous claim to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" wouldn't have had the same ring in the early 19th century, when his predecessors really meant what they said. They got tough by sentencing criminals to floggings or hard labour. And if you were really naughty, they sent you to Australia.

Jack Straw's famous claim to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" wouldn't have had the same ring in the early 19th century, when his predecessors really meant what they said. They got tough by sentencing criminals to floggings or hard labour. And if you were really naughty, they sent you to Australia.

Yesterday, the Australians celebrated the start of "their" second century. The country achieved true nationhood in January 1901, shrugging off the chains that had been such a part of European colonisation. These days, of course, the old joke about passport control at Sydney airport (Q: "Do you have a criminal conviction, sir?" A: "I didn't know you still needed one.") doesn't raise much of a smile. Australia has traded in its penal reputation for that of a confident, thrusting country, glorying in its place in the sun. And after the grand success of last year's Sydney Olympics, it was inevitable that yesterday's Australia Day was a cause for particular celebration.

But a nation keen(ish) to sever any remaining ties with the UK still hasn't forgotten the time when thousands of Poms (Prisoners of Motherland) were dumped on them. Indeed, in Tasmania, Australia's only island state, the convict past is a major tourist attraction, a source of pride. As ancient convict records come into the public domain, having a "crim relly" lurking somewhere in the family history is now seen as being really rather trendy.

Tasmania is part of Australia, yet sufficiently apart that one tourist map famously forgot to include the island state. There is still something fortress-like about it, 180 years after its colonisation as a penal settlement. It's shaped like a shield, after all, and isolated from the mainland by the raging Bass Strait. And its inhabitants are quick to adopt a siege mentality if they feel they're being looked down upon. "They're flash in Melbourne," explained one local, "and snooty, too."

Hobart, Tasmania's capital city, and home to 200,000 of the island's half-million inhabitants, is far from snooty. It's a down-to-earth place, where the best accommodation is to be found in cosy, British-style bed and breakfasts. And there's more than a touch of Torquay in the lavender hedges, neatly turned-out gardens and detached cottages of Battery Point, the residential quarter where we found ourselves staying. Mark Twain, on a fleeting visit in the 1890s, was struck by how much Hobart resembled a "junior England", and called it the "neatest town that the sun shines on". Little has changed.

The city's focus is the stunning harbour area (itself the product of much convict labour in the early 19th century). A sprawling, bustling place, the harbour explodes into life during the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race, held just after Christmas. Meanwhile, the Taste of Tasmania Festival, which runs as an adjunct to these yachty celebrations and lasts into the New Year, has recently expanded. Tourists and locals can enjoy everything from emu kebabs to fine Tasmanian wines, alongside street theatre and funfairs.

It's odd to think that behind all this charm lies such a criminal past, but it's Tasmania's troubled history that has brought tourists such as ourselves here, held captive by the same strange fascination which lures thousands to Alcatraz or the Tower of London. We're drawn by the historic clank of leg irons, the remembered sweat of forced labour, the ancient chant of the chain gang. All to be experienced vicariously, of course.

But first a trip to Hobart's Salamanca market, where every Saturday, in front of recently restored warehouses (now home to cafés serving Devonshire Teas), a vast craft market sprawls. Tended by gentlemen with nautical jumpers and white beards, Salamanca's stalls sell jewellery, antiques and carvings made from native woods such as Huon Pine and Sassafras. However, after an afternoon's browsing we discovered that we'd bought more exquisitely hewn cheese boards than strictly necessary, and so sought refuge in the quiet of the Tasmanian Museum to discover something of the island's darker past.

Far from being murderers or rapists, many of those transported to Australia (or Van Diemen's Land as Tasmania was then known) were punished under the notoriously harsh criminal code of the time, which included the Black Act of 1723 - the panicked response of the ruling class to rising crime in Britain. The Black Act makes its modern "zero tolerance" equivalent look childishly libertarian - "one strike and you're out" was the order of the day, with 50 new minor offences punishable by death. In reality, though, judges were reluctant to make stealing chickens a capital felony and commuted sentences to transportation, in one stroke making crime Somebody Else's Problem.

Upon arrival in Australia or Tasmania, which soon had a reputation for mopping up the "needy and worthless", convicts were put to work for wealthy merchants, or shut up in prisons. Hobart's old jail, now destroyed, was home to many as they toiled to build up the settlement. But the focus for most convict activity was the Tasman peninsula, the escape-proof prison that stretches 100km to the south of Hobart. At its tip is Port Arthur, named after Lieutenant Governor George Arthur, who saw the area as a "natural penitentiary".

The journey south from Hobart to the peninsula is beautiful. Winding through lush agricultural land, with the gum trees pushed back to the wilderness of the mountains, the road passes through a replica of Constable's English countryside, all hay bales and picture-perfect dairy cows. Our first stop, the tiny town of Richmond, continues the English theme - tea shops serve up yet more Devonshire Teas, there's a pub called The Stables, and a dinky model village of Hobart Town as it was in the 1820s. There's even a Richmond Bridge. But this Richmond Bridge was built by convict labour, and nearby is Richmond's biggest claim to fame - Richmond Jail.

Built between 1825 and 1840, the prison is tiny, yet housed up to 85 prisoners. Walking round the minuscule exercise yard, the punishment rooms, the flogging yard and the suffocating isolation cells, we get a real feeling for the privations these men and women suffered. One convict's record seems particularly pathetic - young Bewley Tuck was imprisoned in 1837 for seven years for stealing a loaf of bread. After further misdeeds his stay was extended, and his final entry shows an extra 15 years to be served for committing "abnormal acts".

Beyond Richmond we pass through Eaglehawk Neck, a narrow isthmus where Governor Arthur posted the infamous "Dog Line". The only escape route for convicts attempting to reach the Tasmanian mainland on foot lay across this narrow strip, so here a line of savage mastiffs were chained at intervals across the land and on platforms into the sea. (Swimming was out of the question as convicts all wore heavy leg-irons). Nowadays a particularly unpleasant sculpture of one of these hounds marks the Dog Line, and the officers' quarters house a museum. Entry is free, and it's worth a look - the displays reveal that the army lived only slightly better than the convicts themselves.

But it's not all Great Escape stuff at Eaglehawk Neck. The Tessellated Pavement, a rocky terrace that has eroded and formed "loaves" of salt-encrusted stone, inspires us to make the short walks to the Tasman Blowhole, Devil's Kitchen and Tasman Arch. Each of these formations show the dramatic erosion of the sea that shaped this strange stretch of land. Later, near the Tasman Arch, we found ourselves driving through the strange village of Doo Us, so named by a Mr Bill Eldrige in 1939 (as in, "This'll do us..."). Puns abound: houses are called Doo Me, Doodle Doo and Doo Too. We motor on, past the Doo Drop In café, serving - yes - Devonshire Teas.

The historic settlement of Port Arthur has been preserved, as completely as possible, from its days as a penitentiary. It's a peaceful place, arranged around a quiet harbour, which makes the modern-day massacre that occurred here all the more shocking. In 1996, Martin Bryant opened fire on visitors at the site, killing 35 and injuring many more. He was eventually captured after burning down a local guesthouse. A memorial stone listing the 35 dead now stands at the site, and the shell of the café where most of the victims died has become overgrown, quietly joining the other monuments to crimes of the past.

About 30 of the original prison buildings still remain, including the ruins of the original jail and the isolation prison. In the years after Port Arthur was established in the 1830s, solitary contemplation rather than corporal punishment began to be seen as the best way to reform convicts. Even in chapel, prisoners were herded into boxes so they didn't chat to their mates during sermons. The entrance fee to the Port Arthur site buys a 24-hour ticket, and a trip to the Isle of the Dead, where convicts were buried. It proves to be worth the surcharge, if only for the peculiarity of our guide, who spends the majority of the tour chortling at the spelling mistakes on the gravestones. Inmate records are also available for anyone wishing to discover if they had a relative at the jail.

You don't need to spend long in Tasmania to realise that a convict's lot was no picnic. Marcus Clarke, in his 1874 novel, For the Term of his Natural Life (set, in part, at Port Arthur), wrote of Van Diemen's Land that, "All that the vilest and most bestial of human creatures could invent and practise, was in this unhappy country invented and practised without restraint and without shame." Happily the only lack of restraint practised by modern Tasmanians is in the provision of jam and scones. And that's no crime.

There are no direct flights from the UK to Hobart; the main gateway is Melbourne, which has good value flights on Emirates from Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham and Manchester via Dubai and Singapore. There are connections to Hobart on Ansett and Qantas. Reckon on a minimum of £700 return for the whole journey. B&Bs are increasingly common. Ben Ross stayed at Cromwell Cottage, 6 Cromwell Street, Hobart (00 61 3 6223 6734). A classic B&B in a 19th century townhouse, costing A$150 (£65) a double, including full English breakfast. Anderton's Accommodation, at 20 Remarkable Cave Road, Port Arthur (00 61 3 6250 2378) has one bed and breakfast room - with its own sitting room and veranda - for A$75 (£33) per night

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