DAY 8 - NORFOLK ISLAND

Day 8 – Saturday 11^th JANUARY 2020.

We have been driving past Selwyn’ Reserve every day since we arrived on the island a week ago and have been constantly saying we must take a walk through there.  Well today we did it.  We were going back to the museum today but it did not open until 11am so we decided to leave earlier still and go for a wander through Selwyn’s Reserve on our way into town… 

We have been admiring the beautiful flowering plant each day as we drove past so today was the day to explore them in more depth.

Flower of the Cow Itch tree

The only way into the reserve was to climb over a style.  I wasn’t sure how I would cope with this and the first seemed pretty high off the ground… I surprised myself and wit a little help I managed o climb over.  This is something that I wouldn’t have been able to do six months ago…

 It was really lovely walking through the forest and out to the cliff top.  Like the rest of the islands, the views were outstanding here also….

There were some old machinery wrecks in the forest that we were keen to check out also but when we tried to walk down towards them, that area was fenced off so we had to walk back to the stile and climb back over it and head down to Puppy’s Point and park there and climb another stile. 

 Steve climbed over an earlier stile on the main road and was going to walk down through the gully to meet us,   by the time we got into the forest  he had caught up but was eager to get the good camera as he had walked through a group of little birds that he thought were finches.  We later found out that they might have been the little song thrush bird.  

 He took the camera and headed back to where they were and got some really good photos…  He also walked down the gully or creek bed to the drop over the cliff into the ocean.

 

By the time we had finished our walks it was 11am so time to head down to Kingston to check out another one of the museums. 

On our way down there we thought we would check out the "Officers' Bath first.  The Officers' Bath consist of a stone stairway leading down to a platform around which a stream, Town Creek, flows.  It was built during the Second Settlement to provide a supply of fresh water to the Kingston Settlement.    An underground conduit with a vaulted stone ceiling carries fresh water from a dammed creek in Soldiers' Gully to the Baths, and then under Quality Row to spill into the stream that runs through the Common into Emily Bay.  It is said that the stonemasons required to build the Baths and conduits were deliberately convicted and transported from England to Norfolk Island...

 This morning we chose to check out the “HMS Sirius”.  This was the ship coming from Australia with supplies that got shipwrecked on the reef just out front in Slaughter Bay.  

 To get to the museum we had to drive past "Tent City" and Government House.  "Tent City" was set up back in 2015 or 2016 and is a protest against the Australian Government taking over the administration of the island...  Up to 1914, Norfolk Island was a British colony, similar to Australia pre-1901. After that, it was an external territory of Australia. They had their own Legislative Assembly and ran the island with minimum input from Canberra. They had their own hospital and their own education system, both supported by NSW.  They were not part of Medicare or the Australia system of social security and they did not pay income tax. They ran the island with the kinds of funds that an Australian local council might collect, augmented with 12 per cent GST. They claimed that their annual budget was balanced, in recent years amounting to about $25 million. Minister Gary Hardgrave told the Australian Parliament that: “The introduction of a new Norfolk Island Act to effect change of governance arrangements is supported by a substantial majority of residents.” 

 The islanders were furious with this, claiming it was a lie, and some months later ran a referendum under Norfolk Island statute, which showed that 68 per cent did not want to change their previous status.  Effectively, Canberra had voted the Norfolk Island legislative assembly out of existence.  They claim that this was illegal and have taken their case to the United Nations. 

 The Museum had a lot of information on the “First Fleet” also, including the names of everyone who sailed on the ships in it..  There were a total on 1373 persons on board the ships. Of those, 619 were officials (marines, ship crew and families including 18 children.  732 were convicts…. This consisted of 543 men, 189 woman and three children.  There were also 22 convict children consisting of 11 boys and 11 girls.  During the voyage there were 22 births, 13 boys and 9 girls, and during the voyage there were 69 deaths/dischargers/deserters.  (61 males and 8 females)

The voyage of 25,588kms was travelled with 184 days at sea, and 69 days anchored in ports.  The total voyage time was 252 days or 36 weeks.  I am not sure that I would have liked to spend that much time aboard a ship, and that would be an A1 Cruise ship not something like the cramped quarters they were have had to endure on the ships they came out to Australia on. 

Whist in the museum, we also watched a video on the HMS Sirius and the discovering of the shipwreck back in the 1980’s and how they managed to retrieve some of the artefacts that had laid on the floor of the ocean for some 200 years.

The time we got out of the museum it was lunch time… Kathy wanted to make a pit stop, so the rest of us waiting on the beach front down in Slaughter Bay.  The sun was out for one of the few times it has been out this week, and the Bay looked beautiful.  The colour of the ocean were vibrant and the water was pristine clear.  We spent a little time soaking it all in.  If it hadn’t been for our hungry bellies we might never have left….

Our car

Beautiful Slaughter Bay

Hunger did call so we decided to head into town and check out another new little café called “The Olive” Café.  It was quite crowded so that I always a good indication that the food is good…

Ian's lunch

Kathy's lunch

Our lunch

my share

We placed our orders, Steve and I shared a Chicken with in season roast vegetable toasted wrap with chips and aioli, Ian chose a pulled beef roll with coleslaw and chips, and Kathy chose chicken and garden salad.  We all had drinks and whilst I had a diet coke, the others had hot drinks which came in awfully colourful disposal cups with photos of either bird life or plants on them.  The food and drinks were good, and we left feeling very satisfied…

This afternoon we planned on doing a “Walk through the Wild” which is a rainforest walk on private property.  The walk and the mini golf that is situated here are open each afternoon from 2 to 5pm only.  We were extremely surprised to find there was no charge to do the walk or play mini golf.

time for a game of chess...

The walk was excellent with lots of signage along the way informing you not only about the many plants in the rainforest, but also about the birds and  life on Norfolk Island.  We spent a good hour wandering through the forest enjoying all there was to see.  

Wandering the track

What's this

The dreaded cow itch tree -

Just looked like a snake sliding through the forest....

Once we finished this walk we decided to play a round of mini golf.  The course was great, only 9 holes, but each hole represents some aspect or place on interest on Norfolk Island.  It is obviously a very popular activity on Norfolk Island and I can understand why as it is free.  We were going to play a couple of rounds but stopped after the first round due to the rain that had started falling.. Still, we had a lot of fun playing this round, Steve was the clear winner, with Ian coming next followed by Kathy with myself coming last.  I may have redeemed myself if we had played another round…

The whole mini golf course represented different tourist attractions on Norfolk Island..

By now it was 4.30pm so we decided to head home and rescue our towels which were hanging on the line and have a cuppa in the comfort of our home.

We had a very chilled out couple of hours, reading, watching the news on TV and for me, editing photos and catching up on journal writing…

Tonight we had decided to eat out so by 6.30pm we were heading back into town to go to the Bowls Club for dinner.  We had previously been here last Saturday night and had enjoyed the meal.  The meals were enormous, so this week, we decided to share a meal between each couple.  Steve and I stuck with the meal we had the previous week which was called a “Seafood Feast”.  Not too bad a value at $28.  Ian and Kathy choose to share the “Fish and Prawn” meal with chips and Salad and their meal was $30.  We also ordered an entrée of mini vegetable spring rolls with chillie sauce and we all shared these.  

Our dinner

Ian and Kathy's dinner

My share of our dinner...

We all shared this entree...

We arrived home somewhere after 9.30pm.  Ian and Kathy retired to read, whilst I continued to photo edit and Steve watched a little TV.  Another great day on the Island…….