St Helena Island Prison Tour

It's always fun to be a tourist in your own town and over the Australia Day long weekend we too the chance o do something we've wanted to for a while - the Cat-o-Nine-Tails tour to the former colonial penal island of St Helena in Moreton Bay. With stunning blue skies and a gentle breeze making a pleasant change from the dreary, humid and overcast conditions of the previous week, we rocked up to Manly Jetty to be greeted by our guides, suitable attired in period costumes. "The Guard" and "Prisoner 321" welcomed us aboard the sturdy Cat-o-Nine Tails catamaran for the short, 30 minute passage over to the island and proceeded to give an informative introduction to St Helena Island.

As we arrived at the St Helena jetty - a modern extension of the prisoner-built original wharf - we were directed to look out for the remains of the guards shark-proof swimming pool, created with rails from the original Brisbane tramway network.

After a fascinating and in-depth history lesson about the island, we next investigated the old lime kiln and the starkly contrasting cemeteries for the children of guards and that of the prisoners. Nowhere during the tour was the harsh reality and calculated inhumanity of the colonial prison system more apparent than in the numbers that adorned the simple crosses in the prisoner's graveyard.

Our guides next took us up a gentle sloping uphill walk towards the original prison stockade, past the site of the old sugar mill and later the prison laundry, where it the remains of a steam engine, imported from Cornwall were easily identified.

Another short walk had us arriving at the original stockade, the heart of the prison, and site of much of the misery during its tenure. That so much is still standing 80 years after closure, despite decades of neglect and the salt laden air, is testament to the skill of the original builders (mostly convict labour) and more recent conservation efforts from passionate historians.

This was an exceptional living history tour and Brisbane needs to do much more like it to remind residents and visitors alike of the long, and often harsh, history of the region. Much has been lost to modern development true, but much more still remains and, just like major tourist centres around the globe, more needs to be made of our history, even if at times it can be a little gory. The UK is proud to celebrate its "horrible history" and so should Brisbane (and Australia as a whole for that matter).