MOOMINS M.C.

Norfolk Island.

What a queer little place that little 8 x 6km pimple in the Pacific Ocean is.
I thought that the subtropical Australian territory would have some of the things we tend to associate with the Pacific like: pretty scenery, nice weather, friendly locals, tasty fruits of land and sea and a chance to relax after the hectic months leading up the wedding and end of school.

In some respects it was exactly that. With a low to mid twenties temperature and humidity levels not too oppressive and pretty scenery, it definitely lent itself to some serious R & R.
What did let it down was the appalling lack of decent food and generally poor service.
Tour operators who don't call you for days to confirm bookings.
Museums doors firmly locked at advertised opening hours.
Accommodation operators who double book your cottage and force you to find alternative accommodation for part of your stay.
Tourism Awards Gold Medal winning restaurateurs who serve deep fried duck spring rolls which are fridge cold inside, even after being told expressly that all food served must be cooked thoroughly due to my wife being pregnant. Not to mention the wine served in glasses which I assume were cleaned with skanky tea towels and smelled like they had been used by a brick layer to dry his armpits after a day on the job.

We tried to find some quality locally made products to buy as souvenirs for ourselves and friends but there was a distinct lack of any such thing. Most merchants were selling things that you could buy in any half decent sized city in the world, their only draw card being that it was duty free, which of course does not mean profit free. I thought I might be able to get a replacement digital camera body as I had dropped mine prior to leaving Melbourne and stuffed it. The lens wouldn't focus and the body was playing up. I took it with me anyway with a different lens and it worked for a few days before finally fizzling out into an unusable mass of formerly expensive metal, silicone and electronic components. But alas, I could not find the equivalent model. All I can say is thank goodness for travel insurance, which incidentally we will also be claiming cancellation expenses on due to my dear wife catching a cold and not being able to fly out on the nominated date. Instead our 10 day stay was cut to 7 and in all honesty I don't think we could have stayed there much longer.

The place was very backward in many ways. They only got mobile phones last year, TV in 1987, they have one roundabout in the main town area. They had to hold a referendum to decide whether to build it or not for crying out loud! And if that wasn't enough they put a bloody speed hump in the middle of it!

The whole island appears to earn it's main income from tourism and that consists mainly of retirees who are infatuated with the Mutiny on the Bounty story and Norfolk Island's link to this historical event by way of Pitcairn Island's population being resettled there in 1856, not long after the Norfolk Island penal colony was abandoned. All you hear from the locals is how they are 7th or 8th generation descendants of the 7 or so families that were resettled and the silver haired brigade just lap it up.
One interesting throwback is the local language which is a mix of ye olde worlde maritime English with a sprinkling of Tahitian. It almost sounds like a very thick Irish accent, but with some clearly unrecognisable words thrown in every now and again.
Like "Watawey yorlei?" (the local greeting) which translated would mean something to the effect of "In what way are all ye?" So from a linguistic point of view it is the only place you can hear English spoken in a way that resembles closely how it would have been spoken 200 years ago.

People seem to have some sort of infatuation with the Mutiny saga and all that's come from it.
As far as I can tell it all started when the mutineers took the Bounty, kidnapped some Tahitian men and women, found Pitcairn Island, burnt the ship and proceeded to kill and inbreed with each other. In 1856 the population was resettled on Norfolk and some of the settlers went back to that godforsaken rock in the middle of nowhere, Pitcairn, where they proceeded to inbreed and rape each other and each other's children for the next 150 years under the guise of living like good little Seventh Day Adventists, culminating in the sex offence trials.
It beats me how all this real life Lord of the Flies shit can possibly seem appealing to people, but apparently it does.

Our last night's dinner was had at another supposedly good restaurant where seated at the table next to us was the only genuine Pitcairn Islander on Norfolk. It turned out his father Steve Christian and brother Randy were charged, convicted and sentenced at the trials. This particular chap was also looking at having charges laid against him, but one by one the victims withdrew their testimonies due to family pressures coming from Pitcairn.
I was reading a book about the trials Pitcairn Paradise Lost written by a journalist who covered them, but I hadn't got to that part yet.
The islander was very friendly and exuded a natural charm. As far as I can gather, this is how Pitcairn Islanders buttered people up through the ages and managed to maintain that facade of Pacific Island Pious Paradise.

My opinion , for all it's worth, is that Pitcairn islanders have proven that they are unable to lead normal lives as either westerners or Pacific islanders. Their behaviour and consistent abuse of power and trust amongst themselves, their gross indecency and sexual depravity and their general modus operandi is very much the same as has been seen in weird religious cults and sects. One interesting thing is that none of the men offended when ever they were overseas, only in their community, which proves that they knew it was wrong,
The population should really be once again resettled on Norfolk Island where they can happily interact with their descendants and at least have an eye kept on them.
It would save a lot of money trying to prop up this pathetic remnant of the past and at the same time hopefully save future generations the misery and horror of what the present and previous ones have had to go through.
Having said all that, there was a minute portion of islanders who were not involved in the crimes, but not doing anything about them is almost as bad as having performed the acts themselves.

FYI, for people who have been living in the Pacific for over 200 years, the Norfolk restaurants have no idea how to cook fish.


The general feel is that the Norfolk islanders know where their bread and butter is coming from and appear to do the bare minimum required to separate the tourists from their money. The preferred method is to put everyone on collective tours. We found that trying to go it alone is not very fruitful and as a result we spent a lot time at the beach, swimming, reading, lying around. Very relaxing, but even though we were after some relaxation we expected it to be by choice not force, as there really wasn't much else to do.

Anyway, here are some photos: