Pacific Summer Series: Norfolk Island (Part 1)

For the remainder of January, I'm running a series of my previously published print articles about Pacific islands. 

This week, we're off to the Australian territory of Norfolk Island, which I visited in 2007 as a guest of Norfolk Island Tourism...

"We got everything Tahiti got, we only no got the coconut."

I’m part of a group being serenaded by these immortal words, as the local Rotary Club fires up the barbecue and peels back the clingwrap from plates lining trestle tables at a popular picnic spot.

These Rotarians are an active bunch, bustling between the food and the dining tables set out on the grass, while keeping our glasses topped up.

At first glance, it could be a public gathering in any country town in Australia.

But it’s not.

Beyond the picnic lawns, dotted with pine trees, is a sheer drop down to the ocean, which is a gorgeous deep blue.

Off to the west, the sun is setting spectacularly beyond the line where the Pacific meets the sky, creating a spectacular light show with the scattered clouds and throwing the pines into striking silhouette.

The singer is also interesting. Wearing a bright tropical shirt, and interjecting friendly banter between the lyrics, he keeps up a flow of songs celebrating the history and culture of his home.

His name is Trent Christian, and that surname may have just tipped you off to the fact that I’m on Norfolk Island, where the descendants of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian and his followers settled in the 1850s.

The dinner location is Puppy's Point, a gorgeous picnic spot wedded to a sheer cliff. It’s a magnificent showcase of the Pacific Ocean, and the ideal place to catch the sunset. These catered outings are held regularly by local tour companies, or you can just stock up a hire car and do it yourself.

Our “fish fry” is a popular activity on Norfolk, and the local fish on the barbie are accompanied by dishes that veer from the everyday to the unusual.

As Christian’s 18th century English sailors married Tahitians, elements of Tahitian cuisine still survive to this day.

In the local pidgin English tongue, for example, yorlye means “all of you”.

On the trestles tables tonight, we find items like pilihi, a moist cake made from plun (banana). And just along the table is a lemon pie just like my mother used to make in the 1970s.

It’s curious and fascinating, this contrast of the exotic and the unexpectedly old-fashioned, but I’m starting to understand that that’s what Norfolk Island’s like: difficult to pin down.

One minute you think it's charmingly old-fashioned, even daggy, the next you're gobsmacked by some amazing sight, or intrigued by unexpected evidence of a different culture.

Take the township of Burnt Pine. No one would accuse this place of being too fast (except, perhaps, the islanders themselves).

Walk along its main street and you’re transported back to an Australian country town of the 1970s, via its old-fashioned shopfronts with their quirky names (“Pete’s Place”, “The House of Scruples”), its minimal traffic, and its RSL clubs advertising cheap meals.

Conversely, there are a number of modern cafes on the strip, including the Norfolk Island Coffee House, a pleasant timber venue which is as cutting-edge as it gets here, supplying all mod cons including home-grown espresso coffee and wireless Internet access.

There’s also the cattle grid surrounding Burnt Pine, which stops cows from wandering into the built-up area.

Cows are an unofficial symbol of the island as they range free around the landscape, grazing as they have done since the early days of the colony.

A piece of trivia that every visitor inevitably learns is that the current fine for killing a cow by collision with your car is at least $300. These wandering bovines are not holy, but they're also not cheap.

The dominant type of accommodation on the island is low-rise cottages or apartments; even the five-star lodgings tend to follow this model, though with enhanced facilities and the island’s best views.

I stay at a place with the kind of rating I’ve been accustomed to over the years, the 3.5 star Channers Corner, a set of self-catering apartments within a lush subtropical garden.

Like everything on Norfolk, it has a historical footnote attached.

It was once owned by a Commander Arthur Channer, whose wife was a former World war I nurse and suffragette who helped found the island’s nursing service.

My accommodation is yet another flashback to a previous decade, as the plentiful pine panelling hints at a bygone style. But it’s simple, neat and well-stocked with cooking utensils for a prolonged stay.

There’s a separate shared lounge with books and games, and a laundry and barbecue as well.

And at night it’s very very quiet. I can’t stress just how quiet it is, for a hardened inner-city resident like me. It takes a bit of getting used to... but it’s good.

But just when you’re getting used to Norfolk’s serene ambience, you’re shaken out of any creeping complacency by the spectacular scenery...

[Next: Mountains, trees, spectacular convict ruins, and an afternoon at the beach...]

The Unicycle Diaries 4: Pining in the Pacific

In March 2007 I flew to Norfolk Island, an autonomous Australian territory in the Pacific Ocean. It was a mere 24 hours' stay, as part of a contingent which included retired football coach Ron Barassi, entertainer John Michael Howson and a bunch of travel writers. It was simultaneously fast, furious, fascinating and curiously low-key. Here are some notes I made in my diary at the time...

- I’m in a pleasant timber cafe on the main shopping drag, with espresso coffee and wireless Internet access. The service is suitably relaxed, though the coffee is no threat to Melbourne’s best. But what it lacks in urban sophistication, Nl makes up for in laidback small-town charm. Our driver, Les, likes to make fun of the island’s remoteness (“The Internet? What’s that?”), but of course that’s the whole appeal of the place.

- Quirky, daggy & just plain fascinating place names: we pass Burglars Lane on the way to dinner.

- The island is full of Norfolk Pines (funny, that), its originally volcanic landscape softened to rolling green hills by time. For anyone brought up in an Australian country town, it’s curiously reminiscent of rural Oz in the 1960s, especially those trees, which used to pop up in small town parks with predictable regularity.

- “We got everything Tahiti got, we only no got the coconut,” sings Trent Christian during our Rotary Club hosted ‘fish fry’ at Puppy’s Point. Also “Captain Cook came to our isle... (something) made... (something) smile”. OK, didn’t catch all that.

- Puppy’s Point: a gorgeous picnic spot with an odd name, wedded to a sheer cliff, a magnificent showcase of the Pacific Ocean, interrupted only by the conical silhouette of a lone Norfolk pine.

- The food is a strange blend of the exotic and the old-fashioned (Rotary Club lemon pie is just like mother made back in the ’70s).

- Fish fries are apparently very big on NI, more of the whole unconscious retro thing. The accommodation too seems dated; one major hotel has a dining room identical to the one in Fawlty Towers. Though there’s something kinda reassuring about it all.

- Taxi service: There’s only one taxi on NI, the sole form of public transport available. The cab’s fare structure is interesting, at least if you can believe what you’re told. I was informed by one islander that journeys are $5 inside the cattle grid which keeps the cows out of the commercial centre of Burnt Pine, where they might play havoc with the duty-free shopping, and $10 to anywhere outside it.

- Cows are a recurring symbol of Norfolk Island as they’re grazed in common, as they have been since the early days of the colony, so they range free outside the cattle grid. A piece of trivia that every visitor somehow learns is that the fine for killing a cow by collision with your car is about $500. These wandering bovines are not holy, but they’re also not cheap.

- The picnic spots on NI are simple, with limited facilities, but they’re absolutely gorgeous. I could easily spend days at Emily Beach or Puppy’s Point, provided I’d brought some food and drink with me.

- After only a day here, I’m swimming in the clear blue waters of Emily Bay, feeling myself tangibly unwind as I ignore the work awaiting me at home, the world news and anything else which might be stressful.

- In some ways, it’s hard to know quite what to make of Norfolk. On one hand, it lacks the full-blown exotica of other Pacific destinations like Vanuatu or Fiji; on the other hand, you can’t fault its climate or its absolute tranquillity.

Tim Richards travelled courtesy of Norfolk Air and Norfolk Island Tourism. As this article is based on personal experience from 2007, the author takes no responsibility for readers' reliance on the information within. Always check on the current cow fine situation before travelling to Norfolk Island.