Chris and Alla's Excellent Adventure (2024): 27. Norfolk Island, Australian External Territory (10/26/2024)

Time to go to the airport!

My initial instinct was to call this a "travel day," since we traveled from Port Moresby to Brisbane to Norfolk Island. But mom and I are serious about maximizing our sightseeing time while we are so far from home and got eight hours of touring and history lessons. Norfolk Island is an isolated rock in the middle of the Coral Sea that has a really fascinating history from the days of England's seafaring past to its involvement as a key airbase and refuelling depot during WWII. I realized that most of the Australian travelers we met were most interested in its history, but of course I wanted to learn more about the unique plant and bird life on the island due to its geographical isolation.

During our transfer at the Brisbane airport, I got a kick at the new occupation bestowed upon me by Qantas. Going to PNG, I had noticed that my middle namehad been split in half to Been and Sen. Qantas interpreted the words to mean that I was a senator and I was actually addressed as Senator Campbell as we took our seats in business class - our first upgrade since Hainan Island. As we waited for the plane at the gate, I was also amused by the obvious demographic of travelers to N.I. and the fact that I was easily going to be the youngest person on the plane by 20 years.

"Senator" Christine Been Campbell
(Qantas split my middle name in half and added "ator")

Mom and the demographic of other visitors to N.I.

Location of Norfolk Island relative to New Caledonia and New Zealand

From the air, I could tell that N.I. going to be special. The landscape was unbelievably green, dotted with stands of Norfolk Pines separated by large swaths of open green fields. After we landed, Mom and I walked the 0.9 miles from the airport to our hotel in Burnt Pines, the major settlement on the island. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the abundance of flowers along our walk distracted us with every step. N.I. has a subtropical climate and, based on its location in the southern hemisphere, is in the middle of it's spring. As a gardener, I recognized many of the plants that I have in my own garden, but in my climate zone, many of them don't bloom at the same time. It was unusual to see amarallyis, daylilies, apaganthus, gladiola, lantana, and rosemary all in bloom at the same time.

Norfolk Pine on the left, rainbow in the center

Norfolk Pine close-up

Our duplex at Aloha Apartments, Burnt Pine, N.I.

NORFOLK ISLAND BOTANIC GARDENS

As soon as we checked into the hotel, I left to walk to the N.I Botantic Garden, about a mile away. Part of Norfolk Island National Park, the gardens were unique from the part of the island I had seen from the air - definitely influenced by cattle grazing. Most plants in this 5.5-hectare plot are native to Norfolk Island, and many of them are endemic, meaning they grow here and only here. The tree ferns and the cordyline trees were my favorite, felling like something out of the dinosaur age.

One of two types of endemic tree ferns

"Golden Hour" selfie in a happy place - a garden

View of tree ferns through canopy

Tree fern

GHOST TOUR DINNER

I made it back to apartments to be picked up for our evening dinner and Ghost Tour. It was described on the Pinetree Tours website as "real ghost stories & real haunting" in which we would "hear the terrifying tales of mischief, malice, mayhem & murder as your local ghost host guides you on a spinetingling lantern-lit tour around the historic streets of the Olde Town." I was sceptical as to how much my spine would tingle, but we would have dinner as part of the experience so that was enough.

Mom and I were the only Americans one the bus of ~40. And I couldn't help notice the "Australianness" of all the other passenters. As a group, Australians seem to have some slightly different physical characteristics that white Americans. I noticed a lot of weak chins, stocky bodies, and crooked teeth. I could be over-analyzing, or there could be differences as a result of a less diluted British heritage over here, where as in the U.S. I think most people with European heritage are "Heinz 57" blends of all parts of Europe. For me, my last name may be Scottish, but my father is 1/4 Polish and my mother's great grandparents were from Switzerrland.

The other Aussie characteristic that couldn't be ignored was their outgoingness in a group. As people climbed on board the buss, they were loudly greeted by others already on the bus, and chatter among strangers started relatively easily over dinner. It continued throughout the night and later became a few practical jokes in the cemetery.

The stories of hauntings and unexplained phenomena that we were told during evening were interesting, but not as interesting to me as learning about the unique history of the people on the island. To this day, a third of the people currently living on the island are direct descendents of the Mutineers of the HMS Bounty. These sailors kicked their captain, William Bligh, off the ship in 1789 after they finished a 5-month missing in Tahiti. They put him and 18 other men in a smaller boat with 5 days of rations and set them adrift. Bligh and his small crew, amazing managed to survive and return to England.

The group of mutineers who went back to Tahiti and stayed were ultimately captured by the British navy and were lost at sea during their voyage back to England to stand trial. Another group of mutineers, returned to Tahiti to pick up their girlfriends and other locals, and in early 1790 settled on an island that was mischarted on the British navy documents. They thrived on this island, Pitcairn, where they escaped punishment and started new lives. In 1856, the entire population of Pitcairn Island had grown to 193. Aware that they would soon outgrow the resources on Pitcairn, they petitioned the Crown and Queen Victoria granted them permission to re-settle on Norfolk Island.

Before the "Pitcairners" resettled the island, there had been two other settlements. Two convict settlements on Norfolk Island lasted from 1788–1814 and from 1825–1855. The second convict settlement was built on the principles of a ‘great hulk or penitentiary’ and was described as unimaginably brutal by our tour companions who knew more of the island's history. After dinner, we explored the abandoned remains of the second settlement's convict hospital by lamplight. We were returned to the apartments around 11, whereupon we started packing up for tomorrow's flight to Syndey.