Blood-drenched history, global isolation, wild colonial roads – how are the Norfolk folks so carefree? David Naylor crossed the Pacific to find out
After passport control, I emerge into a tiny airport terminal where customs officers lead dogs on sniffing raids against random luggage.
The locals waiting for passengers talk a weird lilting lingo. The full moon glares through a window.
Someone has a sign saying: Welkum to Norfuk Ailen – da bais said orn Erth.
A moment of panic: Have I landed in some God-forsaken Dutch colony?
I feel like I’m in a movie. Someone is watching me. I will be driven away for interrogation.
A woman approaches. She wants to take me for a drive.
“A drive?” I say. “Where?”
“To your accommodation, but I can give you a bit of a tour first if you like.”
Her English is good. The accent is Australian.
“I’m Gloria,” the woman says as we step out of the terminal straight into her car.
“Welcome to Norfolk Island. I’m from the tourism office.”
Gloria’s car shudders on rough roads that are really just joined-up pothole repairs. She apologises but offers no explanation. Her silence implies I will come to an understanding about the bad roads.
I’m tired from the flight, but Gloria insists on showing me the sights by the light of the moon. It turns out to be a wonderful prelude to my visit.
We drive to Kingston where historic Georgian buildings overlook the ruins of a penal colony with a terrible history of human deprivation and torture. The cemetery nearby is full of executed convicts who joined foolhardy liberty-or-death rebellions.
Tonight, preserved prison walls cast ghostly moon-shadows over the site. The haunted public buildings and grand residences on Quality Row seem ominous and forbidding in the glow. Down by the jetty, I imagine the cries of convicts in the crashing of waves against the cliffs.
Joan’s lively commentary keeps the ghosts outside at bay. Ships are unable to dock at either of the island’s two jetties, she says. All goods come ashore on boats called lighters, which have changed little over the years. Abandoned lighters lie in long grass at the edge of Slaughter Bay. The newer ones are housed in boat sheds nearby. Even cars and trucks come ashore on these craft.
We drive to a headland at the end of sheltered Emily Bay and look back at an arc of luminous sand. This is where locals and tourists cool off in summer. In the holiday season, I’m told, some local people pitch tents and camp on the other side of the dune behind the beach, just minutes from their homes.
Cattle graze at the roadside as Gloria drives me up the hill toward Governor’s Lodge Resort, my four-star accommodation for the rest of my stay. I have been on Norfolk Island an hour and already feel connected.
A Pinetree Tours minibus picks me up after breakfast. Max is the driver and guide for an “orientation” tour.
Burnt Pine township is buzzing with traffic and duty-free shoppers. The trendy cafés pump out lattés to tourists lazing at outdoor tables.
A car drives straight over the top of the new and only roundabout.
Some locals pretend it isn’t there. Roundabouts may be too much of a concession to the world beyond this isolated external Australian territory 1600km east of the mainland.
In a few hours, we see all the island’s landmarks, including the spectacular view from Mount Pitt.
I see a different Kingston in the morning sun, transformed from creepy to splendid.
Cows lumber across roads, chewing on grass verges. Max tells us to be careful driving near them. The deal is: Kill a cow, pay its market value.
Max’s knowledge is vast and his narrative entertaining. He translates signs and popular expressions from the local language, a mix of 18th Century English, Dutch and Tahitian developed by the original Bounty mutineers.
Welkum to Norfuk Ailen – da bais sad orn Erth. Welcome to Norfolk Island – the best place on Earth.
Watawieh Yorli? Hello and how are you?
See yorlyi morla: See you tomorrow.
Max is just one of a team of Pinetree Tours guides buzzing around in their mini-buses. They appear from nowhere to take us to a traditional sunset fish fry, a bushwalk, a sound and light show around the ruins.
They are laid-back and witty, good for a laugh and eager to please, and they feed my fascination for the lingo, talking it easily with each other.
Their demeanour disguises the military precision of the Pinetree operation.
Heading out in my rental car (from Advance Hire Cars), I begin to understand about the roads. There’s little other traffic. The small car seems to be speeding at the 40km/h limit, its wheels bumping and bouncing over disintegrating bitumen. Euphoria creeps up on me as I zip around the island, free to go where I please.
It’s fairly obvious after an hour of fun driving that the bad roads have no relevance. Nobody cares much because nobody needs to care.
Apart from enjoying the drive, I have a mission – to investigate a comment from Max that grapes could not be grown on the island. What, I wondered, were they growing at Two Chimneys Vineyard and Winery?
I call into Two Chimneys to find the answer. Inside the tasting room, I look out at healthy vines. Owner Rod McAlpine assures me his first grapes will be harvested in February, with the wine on sale in August 2009.
“That contradicts our tour guide,” I say.
“That would be Max,” says Rod.
“We will soon change his thinking.”
Until that first batch is bottled, Rod is offering superb wines under the Two Chimneys label, specially made on the Cassegrain estate near Port Macquarie.
My favourite tourist attraction is Fletcher’s Mutiny Cyclorama. This amazing 360-degree painting with sound effects puts you right into the middle of the mutiny of Fletcher Christian and his followers on the Bounty against Captain William Bligh, and their eventual settlement on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands.
Norfolk is still largely populated by the descendants of the Bounty families, and the surnames of the mutineers dominate the population – Adams, Buffett, Christian, Evans, McCoy, Nobbs, Quintal and Young.
History looms like a restless ghost everywhere you turn. The Norfolk Island Museum, spread over several sites at Kingston, contains relics of the three abandoned settlements – the original Polynesian one, the first benign British convict colony, and the second British hell-on-earth prison regime. The British closed the prison and left in 1855, handing the island over to the Bounty families who had outgrown Pitcairn.
I congratulate the artists who painted the cyclorama, Sue Draper and Tracey Yager. They run the gallery around the entry foyer. Sue is originally from Melbourne, but has lived here since 1997. Tracey was born on Norfolk Island, a descendant of mutineer Matthew Quintal.
The next day, my plane home is delayed waiting for a young man with a broken leg needing treatment in Sydney. The St John ambulance officer who helps him on board is artist Tracey. Even though it’s a voluntary role, she is doing her bit for Norfolk by working two jobs, like so many of her fellow islanders.
As we take off I look down at Norfolk Island with a yearning to return. The statistics say there’s good chance I will: 38 per cent of visitors come back.
Open Road November/December 2008
4WD
