Sent to the colonies from England as a convict, Whelan – like so many others – absconded. Like all bushrangers in Tasmania, he targeted the many isolated homesteads for plunder; but he also roved the forests ambushing lone travellers, robbing and often killing them.

He’d never been a likeable man. Nicknamed for his gnarled, pock-marked face, Rocky Whelan was transported in 1829; he spent time in Sydney, Norfolk Island and Hobart, each time making efforts to escape. Myths surfaced about his fondness for dimly-lit cells, or his supposed imperviousness to the lash or other forms of corporal punishment. His final disappearance came as he was assigned to a public works gangs in Hobart. It took only two days for him to abscond into the bush around Mount Wellington.

Without doubt, Whelan was bold. During his winter on the mountain, he would visit a local magistrate, repose in front of a roaring fire, and read the newspaper. He stopped visiting the day he read his own profile as a wanted man.

But most of his time was spent in this curvaceous edifice of honey-coloured, quartz-rich Triassic sandstone, alone, with but a small fire to keep himself warm against the damp southern weather.

In the end, Whelan was caught, by chance, outside a boot-maker’s workshop. He was repairing the boots of a missing man. He admitted to five murders. He was hanged at the Imperial Gaol in 1855 with 112 offences against his name.

There was an old man near Brown’s River, the youth Dunn on the Huon track, an elderly gentleman at Bagdad, a young fellow on the Westbury Road, and a hawker near Clevelend. A chequered career of murder, fatalities scattered across the island. At one stage he appears to have travelled around 100 miles in three days.

“Dead men tell no tales” was the highwayman’s mantra. And yet, this cleft of sandstone in which the cold-hearted bushranger John Whelan took refuge during his days of terror in Tasmania bears his story even still. Nowadays, a small detour off a popular recreational walking route on the mountain points out his old hideaway.

The bank manager, who knew George Scott well, couldn't believe what was happening. Scott tied him up and told him to tell the police that he had been robbed by Captain Moonlight. From then on the gentle preacher, George Scott, became the bushranger Captain Moonlight. After trying to escape in a boat, Captain Moonlight was caught. He escaped from Ballarat Jail but was soon caught again. Sentenced to ten years in prison, he was freed in 1879. His years in jail didn't stop Captain Moonlight's career as a bushranger. As soon as he was freed he set about getting a gang of young men together. Some of them were still in their teens.

In November l 879, Captain Moonlight and his gang held up a farmhouse at Wantabadgery. The farm owners and workers were bailed up in a room in the house. One of the men managed to escape and returned with nine policemen. A battle followed, and one policeman and two of Captain Moonlight's gang were shot dead. Captain Moonlight and one other membered his gang were tried and hanged. The other two gang members were jailed for the rest of their lives.