Pining for Norfolk

COLIN MOORE* finds a leisurely pace of life in historically rich Norfolk Island, where cattle roam the main street and drivers still wave to each other.

There is no better way to develop a feel for a travel destination than on a guided tiki tour. And it is likely to be even more revealing when the place measures just 8km by 5km. So it proves with a "half day" coach tour of Norfolk Island, a speck in the ocean that is not quite the South Pacific and too far north to be in the Tasman Sea.

The facts and figures flow from our tour driver. In 1856 Queen Victoria gave the island to the descendants of the Bounty mutineers whose home in Pitcairn was becoming too small for their fecundity. Before that it had been a vicious penal colony.

Norfolk has 1800 residents, most with surnames such as Christian and Quintal, and a tight immigration policy. Our driver has been here 30 years. He met and married a Quintal in Sydney but it is clear he is still an immigrant, an islander by grace.

Residents pay no tax, the average wage is between $7 and $16 an hour, and life is cruisey, so long as you don't kick over the traces too much. Since 1788 when the hungry first settlers of Sydney sent a bunch of convicts to Norfolk Island to grow vegetables for them, the island has been about its people.

The forest of distinctive pines that greeted Captain Cook in 1774 are now in ones or twos, or small clumps in lawn-like pastures. The remaining trees are protected and the islanders are planting hundreds of replacements a year but, even as they spread, the result will be part of the Norfolk Island enigma. There is nothing like that shape of tree anywhere else in this hemisphere.

And where are the skinny dogs, or the clapped-out motor bikes, or the groups of scruffy little kids, abandoned cars, or pot-holed dirt roads bordered by weeds and scrub?

The Pitcairners had coconuts and they used the milk liberally in their cooking. Coconut palms don't fruit on Norfolk so the new immigrants used dairy milk and decreed that cattle could graze the common.

It must be a lot cheaper than mowing it with a tractor and you will not find such neat and tidy roadsides anywhere else in the South Pacific.

True, one tradition has been overtaken by modern commerce. The retailers of Burnt Pine tired of shovelling away cattle calling cards and lobbied to have cattle stops at either end of the township.

It was a dumb move, I'm told. Pictures tell the story. The man in the camera shop says that every tourist who had holiday snaps developed while on the island had taken pictures of cattle wandering through the township. A tourist attraction and a verge mower all in one.

Still, there are plenty of cattle on the roadside elsewhere and modern commerce has failed to kill another island tradition. We'd normally get a few minutes to stretch our legs and take in the view of Emily Bay from Pt Hunter but today we're lucky. An Island trader is anchored in Sydney Bay and we have 10 minutes to watch the action.

When a trader comes in, a bunch of men leave whatever they are doing to answer the call, like volunteer firemen. Some crew the large, clinker-built lighters, some the launches that tow them. Others tend to the mobile crane at Kingston jetty that lifts the goods off the lighters, a fork-lift truck, or the lorries that come to pick up the goods.

Of course, it would be easier if they had a small, purpose-built, motorised scow big enough to take a shipping container. They'd probably unload the ship in an hour with three or four people.

But the unemployment figure might rise above zero and tourists would have to be content with photographing the old, rotting lighters in the grass around the jetty and looking at the displays in the nearby social history and maritime museums.

A single $A18 ($21) ticket will get you into them, as well as the archaeological museum and Number 10 Quality Row.

They are housed in convict-built stone buildings at Kingston and it's a labour of love for a lot of people who staff them and prepare the displays.

Quality Row has a string of fine Georgian homes that are being restored and used as accommodation and offices for the island administrators. Number 10 was built for the foreman of works in 1844. The ash pit in the lawn outside this and other homes has proved a goldmine.

The woman who shows me around, an expat Kiwi, says she can remember her grandmother saying when a plate was broken: "Put it on the hearth and it will go out with the ash."

So at the archeological museum volunteers have sifted through the ash and carefully glued together hundreds of jigsaws of 19th-century crockery.

"See that mark there?" asks the archaeologist. "It's a cross with a 'T' on top. That's the mark of Thursday Christian, Fletcher Christian's grandson. That cup came from Pitcairn. They used to have a lot of potluck dinners on the island and everyone marked their crockery so they would know what to take home."

Our tiki tour takes us past the modern ash pit, a cliff-top recycling depot with a stunning view. There are no abandoned cars because when the salt air rusts them, the sump is drained, they are torched and the skeleton is consigned to the deep where it soon vanishes in the huge ocean swells and currents.

Up the road is the smouldering burn pit which gets rid of garden waste, tyres and disposable nappies and anything else that might blot the island. It's also the only place on Norfolk where I find even a hint of local antipathy.

"Does the fire ever go out?" I ask the attendant.

"Not in 10 years," he says.

"Is there a big hole in the ozone layer right up there," I say pointing heavenwards.

"Not as much as from the damage caused by people where you come from," he growls.

Serves me right for being a smart alec.

On Norfolk Island the driver of every oncoming vehicle raises a finger or two from the steering wheel in greeting. You soon get in the habit because, despite the island's size (it is about one third the size of Waiheke Island), a car is essential.

Many travel packages include a car and, at some accommodation, personal courtesy vehicles are available for a nominal charge. Typically, when you collect your rental car on Norfolk you drive away until you get settled in and come back later at your own convenience to fill in the paperwork.

At Emily Bay, a golden sand beach and the only really safe place for swimming, John Christian has come home after education and work in New Zealand and Australia. He's a microbiologist and held a top job in the pharmaceutical industry, but he and his wife Gaelene want to raise a family in a peaceful and safe environment.

He runs a glass-bottom boat over the Emily Bay coral reef, second only to Lord Howe as the most southerly in the world where his scientific knowledge is used to explain the reef environment.

You can snorkel over the reef, too. Even youngsters can do it, and while there may not be the variety of colourful fish found further north, there is probably no other coral reef more accessible to travellers.



Beyond the reef is, very quickly, deep blue water where Darren Bates takes me fishing. He's a sixth generation descendant of Fletcher Christian and has been handling boats since his father started the fishing charter business 18 years ago.

Born and schooled on Norfolk, he goes to New Zealand and Australia on holiday just to remind himself of how good his island life is.

I pick up two bonito on the way to a reef 40 metres down where we handline for trumpeter, red cod and scorpion fish. It's easy fishing and a bin is almost filled before we pack up.

Island boats go in the water off Kingston jetty using a novel winch system. It involves hooking up the boat, unhooking your trailer and using your vehicle to lift the boat and drop it in the water.

Bates, who did a butcher's apprenticeship on the island, also has a novel way for cleaning the catch. He unfolds a cleaning table and he and his father deftly fillet with the frames going into the tide.

I take some fillets back to my apartment and, with egg and breadcrumbs bought on the way, fry up a fish lunch as fresh as you can get.

As the tiki tour tootles around the island I am reminded of the haircut I had the day before leaving for Norfolk. The customer in the next chair was having his hair cropped fashionably short. My barber commented that the hairdresser's skill for such a cut was to spin out the job so the customer received his money's worth.

Three days later I realised the tiki tour was not being spun out. It was going at Norfolk Island pace. I was being unwound and relaxed for an island where people set their own pace.

Norfolk Island defies John Donne. It and its people are an island unto itself.

*Colin Moore unwound on Norfolk Island courtesy of Air New Zealand and Norfolk Island Tourism.

Casenotes


Getting there: Air New Zealand flies Sunday and Thursday from Auckland, departing 8.35 am and returning at 10 am. Prices start from $659 a person. Connections to Sydney and Brisbane from Norfolk Island are available three times a week. Contact: Air New Zealand, ph 0800 737 000.

Where to stay: Norfolk Holiday Apartments, ph (00116723) 22009; Tintoela retreat, ph (00116723) 22946, tintoela@ni.net.nf

Getting around: Martins Rentals, ph (00116723) 22021.

What to do: Advance fishing and cruising, $72 a person for four hours, ph (00116723) 23363; Emily Queen glass bottom boat, $A14.50 an hour, ph (00116723) ; island tours, bush walk and breakfast and sound and light shows, Pinetree Tours Norfolk Island, ph (00116723) 22424.

Further information: Norfolk Island visitor information centre, ph (00116723) 22147; Norfolk Island Tourism, New Zealand, ph (09) 413 7390,

website Norfolk Island