The Isle of the Dead, Port Arthur's cemetery island

The Isle of the Dead at Port Arthur is a small island cemetery sitting in the harbour off the settlement. Discover Tasmania puts it about one kilometre out from the Port Arthur shore.¹ The historic site describes a speck of land in a wide sea where over 1,000 people from the settlement were laid to rest between 1833 and 1877.⁶ For a place so small it carries a great deal of the settlement's story.

The site counts it among the most significant historic cemeteries in Australia, and its guided tour is built around that idea.⁷ The local community holds it in particular regard: the site's heritage values list the cemetery on the Isle of the Dead, alongside the Soldiers' Memorial Walk, as places of special significance.⁸ It is a burial ground first and a sight second, and worth treating that way.

Its history reaches beyond the convict era in another way too. The heritage values note that the island probably holds the grave of one known Tasmanian Aboriginal person.⁹ The whole peninsula is Pydairerme country, the homeland of a clan of the Oyster Bay nation.¹⁰ It is worth keeping both stories in mind as you step ashore, because the island is a record of who was counted, named and remembered at Port Arthur, and who was not.

One of the site's best-known stories belongs to the island's gravedigger. Mark Jeffrey, a convict who had already done six months in the Separate Prison after a dispute over his rations, was posted to the Isle of the Dead to dig the graves.^23,24 There, by his own account, the Devil appeared in his hut and spoke to him, and he was so frightened that he begged to be taken off the island.²⁴ Whether you read it as a haunting or as the strain of a lonely job, it is the most human story on the island.

Stories like his feed Port Arthur's reputation. Documented ghost stories have been associated with the site since 1870, and Discover Tasmania notes it has been called Australia's most haunted place.^25,26 The evening Ghost Tour is a separate 90-minute lantern-lit walk through the site's buildings and ruins after the public leaves.²⁷ On the island, the Jeffrey story is one you hear in daylight with the water all around you.

The guides tell these tales with care. Port Arthur does not dress staff in costume, because, in the site's words, it is not a theme park but a real place whose history is dark and difficult.²⁸ On the Isle of the Dead that approach fits: the stories are told as history, and the graves are left to speak for themselves. That restraint suits the place, and it leaves room for your own thoughts as you walk between the stones.

You can book the Port Arthur Isle of the Dead tour in either of these ways. Visiting under your own steam, you buy it from the historic site with general admission included, which suits anyone driving down from Hobart or staying on the peninsula.¹⁴ Travelling without a car, the day tour booked on this page bundles the drive, the cruise and the guided walk on the island. Prices start from $133, and it can be cancelled free of charge until 24 hours before.

Whichever route you take, book early in the day's plan. Since the boats leave between 12:30pm and 2:45pm, the tour fits neatly into the afternoon after a morning in the Penitentiary and the Separate Prison.⁴ The site opens at 9:00am, which leaves time for both before the last ferry.³⁸ On a day tour from Hobart the timing is set for you, so check which part of the day the island walk falls in when you book, and plan your own time in the settlement around it.

If you only have a short visit, settle for the harbour cruise, which passes the island and is included in the entry ticket.¹⁸ If you have the whole day, take the island tour: an hour among those graves puts faces to the grand ruins across the water, and the ferry back to the jetty is a good moment to take it all in. Few places on the site make the convict story as personal as that small island.