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Devils and convicts in Hobart, Tasmania

Tasmania has a sad past. It started off as a dreaded penal colony, wiped out the entire aboriginal population (due to "land disputes", which essentially meant there were already Aboriginees living on the land the white people decided to settle on, as well as the kidnapping of women) and the iconic Thylacine, the Tasman tiger.

As if that wasn't enough, the ill-tempered Tasmanian Devil is threatened by a 100% fatal contagious facial cancer. In the formal penal colony of Port Arthur, where many Britons, Irish and Australians succombed to illness or accidents during hard labour, now a popular tourist destination, the most notorious killer in Australian history killed 35 people in 1996.

Despite all of this, Tasmania is a popular destination, especially for bushwalkers and other sporty tourists. The landscape is ever-changing, climate pretty cold (in spring at least) and the people friendly. I arrived in Hobart and walked around the city a little, there is an interesting museum and a pretty harbourside that reminded me a lot of my beloved home town of Oslo. I came across this science vessel renamed after the energetic wildlife enthusiast who died tragically some three years ago.

The former penal colony of Port Arthur was only a day tour away. I jumped on the bus and enjoyed an interesting day of amazing rock cliff formations, the picturesque town of Richmond with Australia's oldest bridge still in use and the haunting site of Port Arthur.

This place was once bustling with life as prisoners, overseers with families and business people led a busy life here. As the facilities were closed down late 1800, the properties were sold off and a hotel and tourist site developed. Unfortunately, most buildings were partly or completely damaged by bushfires at the end of the 1800s.

Now a busy tourist site beautifully located in a natural harbour with green grass, trees and flowers (with an additional big memorial for those who were killed in the tragic 1996 incident), it was hard to imagine this was such a dreaded place. People would be sentenced to several years of hard labour for stealing a handkerchief, Irish for steling potatoes to avoid starving to death during the great famine, boys down to 9 years of age could be shipped from London to the juvenile section just to get them off the streets. Some actually got to learn a trade and many settled in Tasmania for a better life than they would've had at home, but the methods were still pretty brutal and uprooting.

The church had been stripped of both roof and floor in the fires, but was still an impressive sight.

I decided to rent a car to get around (as the public transport wouldn't take me to most places I wanted to visit), and my first stop was Mount Wellington, overlooking Hobart.