Wednesday 11 May 2011

Maria Island Historic Walks

The convict barn above the jetty at Darlington - 30th April 2011.

You can easily spend a day (or more) just wandering around Darlington and taking in the various historic buildings, remains and sites. The Parks and Wildlife Service have several publications available that provide basic information, and several of the buildings contain information, displays and books that will provide more info. The parks.tas.gov.au website has a lot of info, and most of the historical information is in this part of the site. More general Maria Island info is here, and there's a downloadable pdf specifically about the history around Darlington. You may find other stuff if you ferret about.
There are a number of books with good information, perhaps most easily found and accessible being Maggie Weidenhofer's "Maria Island, A Tasmanian Eden". You can sometimes find this in second-hand bookshops, on eBay or on Biblioz. (Note that Biblioz tends to be very expensive!) If looking for secondhand Tasmanian books I recommend: Just Tassie Books, Astrolabe Booksellers and the Imperial Bookshop. The third of those is a true experience, just don't expect tidiness!

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