Day 3: Richmond

Today we are embarking on another day tour, this time to the Tasman Peninsula operated by Under Down Under.

This scenic and active day out explores the towering sea cliffs and impressive geological features of the Tasman Peninsula. It took us on several short walks to Waterfall Bay, Tasman Arch, and the Devil’s Kitchen to see the magnificent sea stacks, arches, and sea caves of the coastline’s ancient rock formations. From Remarkable Cave we’ll walk to the beautiful moon-shaped Crescent Bay, with its enormous coastal sand dunes and sweeping views to offshore islands and the surging Southern Ocean. All in all, the tour promises a wild and wonderful day of nature, wildlife, and awesome scenery, weather permitting.

Highlights include:

• Richmond Colonial Village
• Tasman National Park
• Eaglehawk Neck and Pirates Bay Lookout
• Tasman Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen
• Doo Town
• Remarkable Cave and Crescent Bay

The tour guide, Keegan, picked us up in a nice Mercedes and drove out past the Tasman Bridge in the direction of Sorell. We soon arrived in Richmond, a historic village in the Coal River Valley area. Richmond is best known for Richmond Bridge.

The Richmond Bridge can lay claim to being the oldest existing stone arch bridge in Australia. It was originally named Bigge’s Bridge after the Royal Commissioner John Thomas Bigge who proposed the erection of the Bridge in 1820.

The two years of construction commenced in 1823. It was built by convict labour (prisoners from the nearby Richmond Gaol), a common trend at the time for developing major building and roads. These convicts were forced to perform the gruelling task of mining the sandstone from the nearby Butchers Hill and then transport it to the site using carts.

The Richmond Bridge was completed and opened in January 1825. The total length measured 41 metres (135 feet), with a width of 7.5 metres (25 feet). At the time it had the longest span of any bridge in Australia, and held this title until 1836. It was constructed from brown Triassic sandstone. There are six semi-circle arches in total, measuring 4.3, 8.1, 8.3, 8.5 and 4.1 metres in height. Four of these have water flowing underneath.

The craftsmanship was brilliant – with only minimal maintenance, the bridge has stood for close to 200 years. Constructed with wheat carts in mind, it’s still in use today, supporting automobiles and buses of far greater weight.

The Richmond Bridge is visited by thousands of tourists annually. Unlike many historic monuments, there’s no fence in place to prevent you from having full access. In fact, you can actually walk over it and underneath the outer arches. There’s no one there to charge an admission fee – the bridge is free to enter and open at all times.

There are grassy riverbanks on both sides, which make a great spot for having a picnic and feeding the ducks. We found many different varieties of ducks here.

We did a short loop to the bridge and back again to explore the bakery and other shops before heading back to the bus.