DAY 9 - NORFOLK ISLAND
Day 9 – Sunday 12th JANUARY
2020.
Ian and
Kathy awoke earlier this morning and decided to go for a walk down onto Anson
Bay Beach. It is quite a hike down the
side of the cliff so the drove their car down to the reserve. They had a little trouble getting in there as
the cows were all over the road and not in a hurry to move and let them into
the car park.
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| Cows all over the road |
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| Beautiful Anson Bay |
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| Down on the beach at Anson Bay |
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| On the beach at Anson Bay |
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| Back up the top again.... |
It took them
a good hour and 15 minutes to do the walk, and then they came home and we all
had breakfast together whilst we planned the rest of the day
We left home
just after 9am to head to the “100 Acres Reserve” to do the walk down to Rocky
Point through this lovely forest. The
walk was lovely, we started at the southern end of the walk. There are some magnificent Morton Bay Figs in
the forest here also and we had a little play in them and took some photos…
I am totally
surprised at the number and variety of birds on Norfolk Island. We had even managed to see the Norfolk Island
Parrot us where we live, several mornings in a row and they are on the
endangered species list.
This walk
took us through several different sorts of vegetation from open clearings
through rainforest, and lightly timbered areas and it is a walk I would
definitely recommend. We didn’t manage
to do it last time we were here so I am glad that we managed to do it this
time..
As we
approached Rocky Point, we noticed lots of Tropic Birds which were nesting on
the cliff tops. These birds are quite
distinct with a long red feather coming out of their tails. Nothing was going to move these mother off
their nests, so we were able to get in real close and get some awesome shots of
them. The cliff edge was also dotted with
lots of Mutton Bird nests (holes in the ground). Steve even managed to spot a mutton bird in
one of the nests and took a photo. It
wasn’t the best, as all you could see was a little round ball of feathers…
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| Broken eggs along the track.... |
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| Tropic birds sitting on their eggs. |
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| The tropic bird in flight.... |
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| Mutton bird in it's nest |
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| Mutton bird nests are all over the Point.. |
The view
from the lookout here was really beautiful.
With the sun out, the water was a vibrant blue and so clean and clear and
with our polarised sunglasses on we could see right down onto the ocean floor.
This walk is
a loop walk, and on our walk back to the car park, we came across lots of
Noddy’s (black bird) which were nesting in the trees near the ocean…
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| Up to the top of the stairs... |
We found
several of their eggs that had fallen out of the trees, and if you looked up
into the branches, there nests were scattered everywhere. You could even see the mother bird’s tails
fanned out over the edge of the nests.
It was close
to 11.30 when we arrived back to the car.
We decided that whilst we were out this way that we would drive over a
couple of the roads we hadn’t yet been on in this area as well as go and grab a
photo of “The Arches” which are the remains of the old Convict settlement
stables. On our way to photograph these
we placed a little wooden building that was once a corner store for the early
Pitcairn settlers…
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| One of the early corner stores on the island for the Pitcairn settlers. |
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| "The Arches" - Heritage listed, the old stables from the Penal Settlement days. |
By now
everyone was looking for a toilet stop so we headed back into town to find the
public toilets. Once we had done that it
was time for some lunch. Being a Sunday
there was not much opened on the island.
This is one of the things that I love about Norfolk Island, life here is
what I remembered it to be like when I was growing up. Shops all close at lunch time on a Saturday
and they do not open on Sundays as Sundays are a day of rest. The shops are even closed on a Wednesday
afternoon too.
We noticed
to Café’s opened in Burnt Pine, as we were parked in front of the “Golden Orb
Bookshop and Café” we decided to check it out first. It is an interesting little café as it is not
right on the street, it is tucked away and you enter it by walking down through
gardens. The placed looked lovely and
there were quite a few in there already enjoying the serenity and good
food. We liked the look of the place and
decided to have lunch here….
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| There outdoor eating area |
The meal was
beautiful and well-priced… Kathy had the Golden Orb Pie with salad. It turned out to be a huge home made beef pie with huge hunks of
beef in it and the salad was the best we have had on the island with so many
varieties of home grown vegetables, including lettuce, rocket, capsicum,
cucumber, carrot, beetroot, zucchini, corn, tomato, rockmelon, onion and
alfalfa sprouts… It was also served with a lovely dressing. Steve and I chose the seafood crepe and
salad… again this was beautiful as it was filled with freshly caught seafood
and we had a similar salad. The meal was
huge with two crepes and only cost $19.
Ian enjoyed the Pork and salad panini.
All of this was served with fresh pineapple juice for Ian, Kathy and I
and a hot chocolate for Steve. We
enjoyed our lunch and Kathy bought a book about Norfolk Island from their
bookshop..
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| Kathy's lunch |
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| Massive home made pie - packed with beef and goodness |
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| Ian's lunch |
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| Our lunch |
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| My share of lunch. loaded with prawns and seafood... |
After lunch we decided to head back down to Kingston to wander around the Cemetery. We decided to go down via Rooty Hill Road so that we could stop off at the Queen Elizabeth lookout and enjoy the views again... It was such a beautiful day, plenty of sunshine and blue skies....
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| Looking down on the cemetery - |
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| Great views of Phillip and Nepean Islands. |
I remember
finding this really interesting last time we were here… I think the others
could have taken or left a visit here, but it is such a peaceful burial spot
right next to the water and I was keen to walk around and ponder about the
hardships and lives of folk living on Norfolk back in the early days of
settlement.
A lot of the young men who died
here were only in their 20’s or early 30’s.
Their tombstones read that they were citizens of London or Dublin or
other far away places. How their families
must have grieved for their son’s and daughters dying so young and being buried
on far away shores… Life was very tough
in those early years…. Lots dying from
drowning… the seas around here are so unpredictable… having come from England,
it would have seemed that this place was harsh and cruel… How thankful I am that I didn’t live in that
era of history
. 
The causes of death recorded on many of the stones reflect the harsh life of the colonial days, including many drownings, accidents and even executions. Amongst them are the graves of many of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers who moved from Pitcairn Islands to Norfolk Island in 1856. Considerable restoration of many of the older stones has obviously taken place in recent years.
One of the
other things I noticed about these very old headstones was that quite a lot of
them contained verses of scripture from the bible about the afterlife.
One of the
first grave’s I found as I walked through the cemetery was Colleen McCullough’s
headstone. She was a famous Australian
author who wrote among many of her famous books, “Tim” and “The Thorn Birds” who
relocated with her husband Rick to Norfolk Island for the last 20 or more years
of her life.
Her tombstone
was very plain and simple not like a lot of the other tombstones here.
One of the things I notice about a lot of the
headstones of more recent deaths in Norfolk, is that they list the names of not
only the spouse on the headstone but also their children, grandchildren and In
some cases even the great grandchildren.
This is not something you see back home.
One of the other places I was keen to show Ian and Kathy was the Murderous Mound.
Twenty-six convicts implicated in the revolt were placed on trial; twelve were hanged in two groups of six each on 13 October 1846 for their part in the "Cooking Pot Riot" which took place in the prisoners mess. They were buried in an old sawpit on the eastern side of the Cemetery in what is now know as "Murderers' Mound. The men were purposely buried in unconsecrated ground in a mass grave just outside the Eastern Fence of Kingston Cemetery. The mound is still visible there today...
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| Ian reading about Murderous Mound |
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| Murderous Mound |
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| Beach at Cemetery Bay - Norfolk Island |
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| Government House |
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| Found this little egg on the ground near where I was sitting.... |
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| The most majestic tree down near Government House - Norfolk Island |
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| Some perspective on the size of the Norfolk Pine... See Steve on the LH side... |
Emily Bay
was packed with people swimming and having picnics. There is something to be said about having
Sunday as a day or rest. It certainly is
a big encouragement to a strong family life….
After we
left the grounds at Government House we headed back to the Civil Hospital
ruins. We haven’t checked out the ruins
so much this time as we spent a lot of time in them reading all the signage
last time we were here. We have
concentrated more on the walks and the beautiful nature and scenery of Norfolk
Island this trip.
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| Civil Hospital |
I do
remember that last time we were here, there were lots of signage around the
ruins for you to be able to read and get a real grasp of what life was like in
the early penal settlements. In
particular there were signs in all the rooms of the civil hospital telling you
what rooms they were eg. Dissecting room, morgue… This trip all those signs are
missing which is rather sad, as reading them last time made the whole area come
alive… Steve wandered around the goal
area and found the same there…. All signage is now missing. It was quite disappointing.
After we
wandered around the precinct there, Steve went for a walk up to the top of
Flagstaff Hill where the views were amazing.
Probably slightly better than even the view we had on our 4x4WD tour as
he could look right down onto the convict ruins in Kingston without his view
being obscured.
By now it
was after 4.30pm and we had been out in the sun all day. We were all keen to have a cuppa so we headed
back home to just chill out.
We enjoyed a
cuppa together and then all played a game of 5 crowns for the next hour or
more.
We had
dinner in tonight. Our last fish meal
from all the fish that Steve caught when he went out fishing earlier in the
week. We also need to finish off our
food supplies as we only have a couple of days on the island left.
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| Our last fish meal |
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| My meal |
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| Hawaiian Passionfruit. Slightly more tangy than we are used to.... |
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| My desert |
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| Steve's desert |
We enjoyed a
lovely evening just sitting around the table and chatting to well after
9.30pm.
Ian and Kathy retired not long
after dinner. I needed to do a load of
washing, and as we had planned an early morning start the following morning to
do the walk from Mt Pitt down to Captain Cook Memorial park, I wanted to get it
done and, on the line, tonight before going to bed…
It was
almost midnight before we finally climbed into bed.
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