Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Grummet Island – hell at Hell’s Gates, Macquarie Harbour


A couple of hundred yards from Sarah Island is the tiny rocky outcrop of Grummet Island. This was indeed a Hell on earth for the convict prisoners of Van Diemen's Land.
It was here in the early 1800s that originally a group of women was housed.
Later it was the place where the worse male convicts, the offenders and troublemakers were sent at night.

As there was no wharf, the men had to wade through chest deep water or swim to get ashore. They would then have to sleep either naked or in wet clothes throughout the night and then wade back to the boat in the morning for another day of hard labour.
Pic: Tiny Grummet Island seen from Sarah Island. Today the rocky outcrop is overgrown by bush and nothing remains of the prison building which existed there

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