How Do You Pronounce Gaol??

I knew that the word 'gaol' meant jail but I did not for the life of me know how to pronounce 'gaol' so I finally got around to asking Natalie how to pronounce it.  Can you say 'feeling foolish' when she responded with 'jail?'  Here I had pondered over this far longer than I should have without asking.  Not like I didn't ask questions while I was Down Under...I probably asked too many and this was just one more! 

Richmond Gaol

Anyways...after seeing the bridge and the church we went down to main street Richmond.  Just off the main street there was the oldest intact gaol in Australia built in 1825 for housing for the convicts that were being used in the building frenzy that was happening in the 1820s. Needless to say it had no resemblance to a Hilton and the  conditions sounded horrible at best.  A solitary cell's dimensions were roughly 6 feet by 3 feet (2.13 x 1 metres) and up to 40 men in leg irons were kept in a room the approximate size of 13 x 16 feet (5 x 4 metres).  I don't know how that many could fit in the rooms we found ourselves going through. 

I think I could have spent an entire day wandering around Richmond...there was a ton of pictures I could have taken (as if I wasn't taking a ton on the trip already!) but it was getting time to head back towards Hobart so that's what we did.

As we were going by the turnoff to the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens Natalie asked if I'd like to stop in there as we had a couple of hours to spare before we needed to be at the airport.  I was all for it...I never would turn down a chance to photograph flowers!!  So Natalie turned us around and we headed in to the Gardens. 

Japanese Garden

The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens are the second oldest gardens in Australia with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney being the oldest.  The Gardens comprise of 34.6 acres (14 hectares) in size and I really liked the Japanese Garden...so calm and peaceful to walk through there...well it was when this group of preteen school girls left the area. 

I have only a handful of pictures that I will link to below for the Gardens...mainly because I have done a previous blog on Australian flowers and included quite a few pics from here in that album and, as we were now into the beginning weeks of autumn (we'd call it fall) the flowers were starting to show their age.  Even so I took quite a few just in case.

Unbelievably 5 days in Tasmania had seemed to rush by in one big blur and it was time to head to the airport.  We were already familiar with where the car needed to be dropped off at and before we knew it we were all checked in and I was thankful to check my big suitcase as it had 'thrown a wheel' and I gotta tell you it isn't so fun dragging around a three wheeled suitcase though it did add a bit of humor from time to time.  I heard Natalie chuckle once or twice when I'd lose control and the material would scrape against the cement... still have to get that fixed. 

Now it was just a waiting game for the flight to be called and it seemed like no time as one of Natalie's coworkers, Howard, and his wife had also been in Tasmania and were actually flying back to Melbourne on our flight.  It was a delight to meet them and listen to them tell of their 10 day adventure on the western side of Tasmania camping.  The pictures we saw looked amazing in the mountains and added just another place in my mind to try and go to sometime.

What a great time in Tasmania!!  Wonderful food, beautiful scenery and Natalie was sad to leave the winds behind....not!! 

If you would like to see more pictures of Richmond's Gaol here is a link to that photo album on Picasa:  Play slide show

If you would like to see more pictures of Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens here is a link to that photo album on Picasa:  Play slide show

A Special Note here...Happy Birthday Natalie!!  Hope your day is awesome!!