A historic convict masterpiece

The ruins of the former prison settlement at Port Arthur look surprisingly placid and picturesque by day, but by night the site rates as one of the spookiest in the world. A lantern-light guided tour here combines with spine-chilling narrative to leave you wondering.

Founded in 1830 to house intractable and troublesome convicts who committed crimes after having been transported, Port Arthur became one of the world's most feared names. It ranked with the hellish French penal settlement of Devil's Island, in South America, as the last place any sane person would want to visit.

In an ironic twist, this former 19th-century jail is now Tasmania's most visited historic highlight, a convenient 90-minute drive from Hobart. In convict days, half-starved killer dogs guarded the route, at Pirates Bay. The most common way of escaping Port Arthur was by dying, and more than 1,700 graves are on the Isle of the Dead in Port Arthur harbour.

The two most impressive buildings on site, the Penitentiary and the Separate Prison, show how convict discipline changed from physical to psychological terror. You can as the convicts did in the cubicles of the Chapel or in the total silence and darkness of the punishment cell and imagine their sufferings. In the furnished military and civilian homes you can see how the free community lived.

The biggest building still standing, four storeys high, served as a penitentiary for 650 inmates. An eerie ruined church with 13 spires gleams chillingly in the moonlight as lantern-light tours wind through the wavering shadows.