AUSTRALIA - get lost magazine digital issue 17

There's nowhere quite like Norfolk Island

Words Tim McGlone

Images Rob La Terra

There's nowhere quite like Norfolk Island

Words Tim McGlone

Images Rob La Terra

Everyone – and I mean everyone - waves as we drive.

Ian explains this is called 'The Norfolk Wave', and to not wave is close to sacrilegious here.

Waiting to disembark the plane that has just landed us smoothly at Norfolk Island Airport, I notice through the window a child, unfazed by light rain, sitting on the roof of a car opposite the airport, smiling and waving like crazy.

We make our way across the tarmac and into the quaint terminal, and we're greeted with more waves and smiles. The border control officer tells a joke.

A local named Ian picks us up, and he tells a joke too. We cruise the streets with the windows open at speeds of between 30kph and 40kph, except for when we stop for a passing cow, which Ian explains has right of way.

Everyone – and I mean everyone - waves to us as we drive past. Ian explains this is called 'The Norfolk Wave', and to not wave is close to sacrilegious here.

Cows cruise freely around the island.

Anson Bay.

Cows cruise freely around the island.

Anson Bay.

These are the first of countless idiosyncrasies I encounter on Norfolk Island, a 36-square kilometre of scarcely believable beauty in the Pacific Ocean, a two-and-a-half hour flight east of Sydney, south of New Caledonia and north of New Zealand.

It’s a place to take a really deep breath. Rainforest, beaches, rockpools, cows, trees and dramatic coastlines dotted with epic rock formations that would be world famous if they were somewhere else – the landscape lends itself to calmness and a slower heart rate.

HIT PLAY. GO ON.

Searching for the Crystal Pools...it wasn't here.

I imagine a dendrophile – a tree enthusiast – loving it here. Norfolk Pines are everywhere, running up and down hilly landscapes that owe themselves to the island’s volcanic origins. But there’s also banana trees, palm trees, sprawling Moreton Bay figs that were planted when the English first came, and the world’s tallest ferns, which were here long before that and which tower over everything else in a lush, diverse rainforest.

Even the car parks are beautiful.

The north coast of the island.

Even the car parks are beautiful here.

The north coast of the island.

I notice as we hike along a steep trail called the Bridle Track that a number of Pines especially are blanketed by a blondish-white hair-like substance, the look of which my brain likens to an hipster's beard.

Norfolk Pines are everywhere, running up and down hilly landscapes that owe themselves to the island’s volcanic origins.

This stuff is called lichen. I learn that it is incredibly sensitive to air pollution, and so therefore its presence is a great indicator of air quality. Lots of lichen means plenty of fresh oxygen to breath in. I find myself surrounded by hipster's beards as I walk, and I breath it in: clean air.

The Bridle is probably the best hike on the island. It skirts the perimeter of the coastline atop a perilously beautiful cliff face, before weaving back into the rainforest, and then back out onto the cliff, and so on.

The roar of the ocean crashing into rock coves below us on the cliff makes it feel like nature’s version of a festival. The rainforest is quiet except for the chirp of a few birds, like a library.

Every time I come out of the rainforest, it’s like I’m taking a deep breath as I head back into the party. Quiet and calm, beautiful and loud. This sequence, over and over.

Moreton Bay Fig trees, that have been here since the British arrived.

Jos Adams is a direct descendant of original mutineer on the HMS Bounty, John Adams. The elder Adams established a level of peace on Pitcairn Island in the late 18th century, where he died in 1829 - before the first ship to Norfolk Island.

The Christian family - descendants from leader of the mutineer, Fletcher Christian.

Norfolk Island might have one of the most unique origin stories of any country/territory on Earth.

In 1789, a man named Fletcher Christian led a mutiny aboard the HMS Bounty, which had been bound for England, having stopped in at Tahiti to pick up breadfruit. They ended up at the previously uninhabited Pitcairn Island. After violence marked the early years on Pitcairn, resulting in the death of Christian and all the other men, eventually a colony consisting of John Adams, a few Tahitian woman and a number of newborn children were joined by a small number of crew from passing American and British naval ships.

Bounty Day.

To an outsider, the whole day is filled with curious idiosyncrasies. It reflects the quirks of the island landscape, and its beautifully relaxed people.

John – proud owner of the Best Beard on Norfolk Island.

In the 1850s, with the British Government planning to abandon the penal colony that had been set up on Norfolk Island, Queen Victoria granted the Pitcairn Islanders' settlement on the more hospitable terrain of Noroflk Island. On May 3, 1856, the whole community of 193 set sail for Norfolk, with 194 arriving on June 8, following the birth of Reuben Christian – a descendant of the original leader of the mutiny. They’ve been there ever since, and celebrate Bounty Day the same weekend in June every year to mark the remarkable journey of their ancestors.

Walking the streets and beaches of Norfolk Island in 2024, you’re absolutely odds on to run into a direct descendant from one of the seven original families – the Buffets, Youngs, Adams’, Christians, Evans’ Quintals and McCoys – aboard the original boat that set sail for Norfolk Island.

The Christian family - descendants from leader of the mutineer, Fletcher Christian.

I’m here for the 168th instalment of Bounty Day, and we find ourselves surrounded by beautiful women in traditional flowing white dresses and handmade straw hats, and dapper lads in ye olde white shirts and slacks, plus the hats. The sun shines gloriously as a re-enactment of the first boat arrival takes place on Kingston Pier. From here there’s a procession to the cemetery – surely the most exquisitely located cemetery in the world, beneath a green hill and facing out towards beach and ocean.

Is this the most scenic cemetery in the world?

Bounty Day.

A member of the Buffet family, presented with an award for services to the island.

Bounty Day.

Along the way there is plenty of singing (both the Pitcairn and British national anthems get a run, but not the Australian). There’s an acknowledgement of the extraordinary history and culture of this unique group of people, and the need to preserve it. Respects are paid at the cemetery to those past, both recently and very long ago.

“This is home, this is our culture, and I think it’s important to keep celebrating that. To keep carrying on the flag.”

– Jaden, of the Evans clan

Later, the Buffets are selected as the best dressed of the original seven families, and then, inexplicably, a Best Beard competition, taken out by John, of the Evans clan.

To an outsider, the whole day is filled with curious idiosyncrasies. It reflects the quirks of the island landscape, and its beautifully relaxed people. It’s during the procession that I am struck for the first time by a thought that recurs continuously throughout the rest of my time here; there isn't anywhere else like this place.

Jos Adams, is a descendant of mutineer John Adams, and he takes me under his wing. I join his family at lunch, held within the confines of the old prison, where particularly nasty things once happened to people deemed particularly nasty.

Pitcairn cuisine uses the ingredients that were available at the time. Plenty of coconut.

The afternoon is food, beers and singing.

We eat a delicious combination of western and traditional cuisine. My pick is mudda; a traditional Pitcairn dish consisting of green banana dumplings set in a sweet coconut flavoured stew, whipped up by Jos himself. It feels like Christmas lunch, and I feel as welcome as I would at my own family.

“This is bigger than Christmas for us, I think so,” says a member of the Adams clan I speak to. “Lots of people come back for Bounty Day, if they’ve moved to the mainland. And even though it’s winter, the island always seems to turn it on.”

“This is home, this is our culture, and I think it’s important to keep celebrating that. To keep carrying on the flag.” says Jaden, of the Evans family.

There’s singing taking place in the background as he speaks, originals I have never heard before, and which likely don’t make it beyond the island. I feel like they’re carrying on the flag alright.

The next day I meet Curtis, one of the best dressed Buffets, on a hill near Bumboras Beach, one of the main surf spots on the island. I follow him down a narrow, Norfolk Pine-lined path that snakes its way to the beach. I notice several boards, a wetsuit and some snorkelling gear as we walk, left as if forgotten.

“Yeh people just leave their stuff here,” he says. “Then it’s already here for the next time they need it.”

I imagine the consequences of leaving a surfboard at a beach in Sydney, or the Great Ocean Road.

Noticing my reaction, he continues: “People just leave their keys in their car, and the car doors open too.

Bumboras Beach.

Norfolk Island might have one of the most unique origin stories of any country/territory on Earth.

If it wasn't for the nice weather, you'd think you're in Ireland.

“It’s like, where is someone going to go? Can’t get far. And if you do see someone looking in, it’s probably just to get wax, which is probably worse than taking a wallet here to be fair.”

It’s weird the effect this seems to have, as if a few more worries I brought with me from home have evaporated. Quick breaths when I worry about the whereabouts of keys, phones and wallets, traffic, locking doors and finding car parks have been replaced by slower, deeper breaths, as I follow Curtis to the beach.

It’s flat, but I return the next three, finally getting a small swell on my last day. Both a left and a right hander cut gently towards a picturesque backdrop of lush green jungle meeting beach.

I’ve got it to myself. The deep breaths are coming pretty naturally now.

Crystal Pools.

After the surf, we head to a set of rockpools we were told about.

The presence of a rope at the start of the track is ominous, and the path down is short, steep, and somewhat treacherous. We hold onto it for dear life, bare feet slipping and sliding, until we eventually reach the rocks at water’s edge. The dry rocks feel smooth as we move along them, becoming more jagged the closer we get to the water, and then eventually becoming super slippery.

Every corner of the island is ridiculously attractive.

The rockpools have to be swum at low or mid-tide. It’s at least mid-tide now, water rushing in over the top and probably already too high for the larger of the two pools, a skinny one full of fish. But the smaller, wider pool is the one I dive into, an incredible clearness in the water, meaning I won’t hit any errant rocks on the way in. It’s 7am and I’m floating in a deep rockpool with water so opaque I can see small fish, the ocean occasionally rushing over the top of rocks and showering me as the tide comes in. It's there, floating along that I go back to that thought I had on Bounty Day; there really isn’t anywhere else like this place.