Norfolk Island Things to Do Tips by iandsmith

The island was found by Captain Cook on his epic voyage in 1774 and he even beached the Endeavour here for repairs though the location is not quite certain.
It was decided to found a penal colony here because it was thought that the lovely tall and straight Norfolk Pine would make good wood for masts. It didn't.
There was also a thought that the local flax would be useful for sails. It wasn't.
There were free settlers, marine guards and convicts for labour in 1788 when it was established but the first penal colony was abandoned in1814 when the diffuculty of servicing the island were deemed too much.
A second one was established just 11 years later with more permanency, lasting around 30 years before it too was abandoned though a few remained to hand it over to the descendants of the Bounty Mutineers who had settled on Pitcairn Island but wanted a new place to put down their roots.
Thus it came to pass that the island was handed over to them and today's settlement commenced. It wasn't all smooth sailing. Some were so disenchanted they returned to Pitcairn but enough remained and slowly the island evolved.

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If you want to get up close and personal with how appalling life could be just 200 years ago, then you need look no further than the cemetery, particularly the western end.
It's a tragic reminder of just how bad life on a seemingly idyllic island can become.
"Accidental discharge of a gun while shooting in the woods", "Accidentally shot by a brother soldier......in pursuit of mutineers"; "accidentally drownd (sic) while on duty"; "Drowned ...... by the upsetting of a boat"; "barbarously murdered by a body of prisoners"; "executed on the 23rd of Septer (sic)" are just some of the inscriptions. So many not reaching 30 years of life it makes you quickly realise how fortunate it is that you are here hundreds of years later and not during the convict times on Norfolk Island.
The inscriptions can be clearly read in pics 1-5

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It's morbidly fascinating to wander through a cemetery and be reminded of just how many ways there are to die.
The surreal light that permeated the clouds added to the atmosphere as I read how one unfortunate had perished at the hands of a Greek miscreant, another drowning while fishing for the commandant and the last picture shows a gravestone that, to me, is indiscipherable, except that it appears his name may have been John Owles and he passed away in 1806.

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As you move east through the cemetery the names of the free settlers begin to appear. Quintal, Adams, Christian and other famous and common names of Norfolk are writ large upon the slabs.
The first picture shows three names, all with their nicknames. As it was pointed out, the majority of the island wouldn't know who you were talking about if you used their normal names, hence the nicknames.
The second picture is one that reflects modern times and modern tragedies. Two 16 year old girls were killed in a car crash and are buried here side by side, companions in death as in life.
The third is one of the Quintal areas while the fourth shows how far the gravestones have moved on since the convict era when mispellings were common and workmanship poor.
The last is an overview of those from the more recent settlement and where they are interred.

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Directions: Cemetery Bay, adjacent to Kingston

In a valley running down to Kingston is the remnant of earlier buildings, in particular that of a mill that used to grind grain.
There are two old houses, one on either side of the valley (pics one and two) that remain in some sort of repair though one is decisively on private property.
The mill itself sits adjacent to the dam whose water drove the mill, though the amount contained today is much less than the original.
In fact, this valley has the earliest remains of agriculture in all Australasia.
Wheat, corn, barley, cabbages, oranges, lemons, coffee, tobacco, melons and bananas were all in evidence here.
The second watermill was built in 1828 and is the one you see the remains of today (pic 3), yet by 1833 the dam was declared irreparable due to leaking and just 11 years later the crankmill and windmill at Kingston rendered the mill superflous.
In the mid-1900's the dam was breached and its interior used as a market garden before partial restoration to the delightful park you can use today.

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One of the first things you notice driving around Norfolk is the animals, notably cattle and fowl.
It seemed that down every second street there was a mum chook with her brood and there was even one about 20 metres from our accommodation. All the chooks are feral but the cattle have tags in their ears. Each person is allowed up to 10 and tags are allocated on an annual basis to denote whose cow it is.
As they tend to be territorial it's fairly easy to find one of yours but the job I put in for was the cattle inspector, though I'll be at the end of a long queue. Their job, three days a week, is to check the cattle to make sure they have tags because, if they haven't, then it's bye-bye. Imagine the stress of driving around Norfolk Island on a nice day checking to see that cows have tags in their ears!
Calves are allocated special tags in between the annual allocation.
The chooks used to be farmed but these days just run free because it's cheaper to get eggs from the mainland than collect the local ones.
There's only one small dairy left and its milk is available from the supermarket for $6.50 a litre while imported stuff from Australia sells for just $2.
Due to the presence of American whalers in earlier times, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the island. Heaven help the turkey I photographed.

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You may have come across a sign bearing this inscription from time to time but, since most of us get all warm and fuzzy when we're near wild animals that seem friendly, we tend to ignore it.
This is how you get ducks attacking your side window or a cow coming to dinner uninvited, both of which happened on Norfolk while I was there.
It was actually a bit of a miracle I got the shot of the cow, who had wandered with malice aforethought and stuck its nose into the food on the table, because I was nearly doubled up with laughter at the time watching the people try to disengage from the encounter.
As for the ducks, well, I didn't encourage them in any way and when the Alpha male tried to dive in on the front seat I thought that could be distressing for some older folk who might come to visit.

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Anson Bay was touted as a nice place to visit and so it turned out to be. Located at the north western tip of the island it has a steep headland on one and large rounded rocks on the other of a small sandy beach.
Though our tipster said it was a steep walk down I found it very easy and arrived at the beach still wondering when it got steep. On the contrary, the zig-zag track was a pleasure to negotiate and makes for a pleasant hour walking down, spending some time and walking back.
Should you plan to surf here bear in mind that the rips can be dangerous due to the shape of the bay.
Not too far from the bottom you will see the remnants of a WW II gun emplacement (pic 4) and, on the way down, if you look behind you, the dramatic reminders of a tumultuous volcanic past are readily evident (pic 3).

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Ball Bay, on the south eastern part of the island, is a popular surfing spot when it's working. The attractive view out over the ocean is somewhat balanced by the ugly fuel storage tanks as this is where gasoline is delivered and stored via a pipeline.
There's a road all the way down, steep like so many others on the island and there's not a lot of parking but, since there's no sand, it's really only a surfers' beach.

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The Botanical Gardens, though not extensive, make for a pleasant half hour stroll through forest as it might have been. However, one thing that is in abundance that is becoming a pest is the layers of vines that are swamping the trees and slowly ruining the whole garden. While they may be fascinating to view initially, it is clear that they are stifling any further growth of other plants.
Towards the bottom of the garden there is an interesting sculpture (pic 2) beside the boardwalk (pic 4) which has been very well constructed and makes for easy movement through the gardens.
The last picture shows the broad leaved Myrtia, a plant we had seen several times around the island and apparently it is an endangered species, though certainly not on Norfolk.

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