Norfolk Island

Kingston — the main town of Norfolk Island (an Australian territory of 34.6km² — 1,400km northeast of Sydney, population 2,200 — settled first by convicts from the First Fleet in 1788, then by the Pitcairn descendants of the Bounty mutineers in 1856, creating one of the most distinctive cultural blends in the Pacific) with Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area (UNESCO World Heritage — the best-preserved convict settlement in Australia, with Georgian buildings, the convict ruins, the cemetery and the Government House).

Norfolk Island was settled as a convict penal settlement by the First Fleet in 1788 — only 8 days after the establishment of Sydney. The island was chosen for its remote location and its Norfolk Island pine trees (Araucaria heterophylla — thought to be suitable for ship masts, though they proved too brittle in practice). The penal settlement was later abandoned, then reestablished as an even more brutal secondary punishment colony 1825–1855 for the most hardened convicts from mainland Australia.

The Bounty connection (in 1856, the entire population of Pitcairn Island — 193 people, all descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions — was relocated to the abandoned Norfolk Island penal settlement, where they have lived for 170 years) with the Bounty Folk Museum and a visit to a Bounty descendant family still carrying the surnames Christian, Quintal, McCoy and Young — the same surnames carried by the original mutineers.

The 193 Pitcairn islanders who arrived on Norfolk Island in 1856 (and the 17 who eventually returned to Pitcairn) have produced a community that has maintained both islands for 170 years. Norfolk Island today (2,200 people) and Pitcairn today (50 people) together represent the entire living descendant population of Fletcher Christian and the Bounty mutineers.

Norfolk Island National Park (covering the interior of the island, the least disturbed subtropical forest in the Australian Pacific — with the extraordinary Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla, endemic to the island — the most architecturally distinctive tree in the Pacific, growing to 60m with perfectly horizontal branch whorls, planted in gardens worldwide for 200 years as an ornamental tree) and the endemic Norfolk Island green parrot (Cyanoramphus cookii — critically endangered, fewer than 400 remaining).

The Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla — endemic to Norfolk Island, growing to 60m with its characteristic symmetrical conical profile) has been planted worldwide as an ornamental since it was collected by Joseph Banks during Cook’s second voyage (1774). It is the most widely planted of all Pacific island endemic trees, grown in parks and gardens from San Diego to Durban, yet it remains critically endangered in its natural habitat on Norfolk Island due to introduced rats eating the seedlings.

Emily Bay (the calmest beach on Norfolk Island, enclosed by a fringing reef, with the finest snorkelling accessible from shore in the Australian Pacific — sea turtles feeding on the reef, trevally and parrotfish in the lagoon, the transparent clarity of the subtropical water — the most popular beach on the island and the site of the early morning turtle watching programme run by the Norfolk Island National Park).

Emily Bay’s green turtles (Chelonia mydas — the large green sea turtle that feeds on the seagrass beds within the bay, habituated to snorkellers and approachable within 2–3m — are part of a monitored population that nests on the island from November to February. The Norfolk Island green turtle nesting programme is one of the most northerly nesting sites for green turtles in the South Pacific.

Mount Pitt (319m — the highest point on Norfolk Island, accessed by a short walking track from the national park road, with 360° views of the island and its surrounding ocean and the finest birdwatching on Norfolk Island: the Norfolk Island green parrot (fewer than 400 individuals), the Norfolk Island whistler and the endemic grey fantail subspecies are all regularly seen on the summit track) and the Puppy’s Point cliff walk.

The Norfolk Island green parrot (Cyanoramphus cookii — critically endangered, with a population that fell to approximately 30 individuals in the late 1970s before a major conservation programme began) has recovered to approximately 350–400 individuals through predator control, nest box provision and habitat protection. It is the rarest endemic bird in any Australian territory and the most successful avian recovery programme in the South Pacific.

Bloody Bridge (the ruins of a stone bridge built by convicts in the 1840s, where three convicts killed their overseer and were publicly executed on the bridge — one of the most atmospheric historic sites in Australia, with the bloodstain (rust from the iron anchor embedded in the rock) still visible on the stone) and the Quality Row Georgian houses (the finest row of colonial Georgian buildings in Australia, housing government officers during both periods of settlement).

Quality Row in Kingston (the row of Georgian stone buildings constructed by convict labour between 1825 and 1855 — including the Commissariat Store, the Surgeon’s Quarters, the Engineer’s Workshop and the military barracks — is the best-preserved example of colonial Georgian institutional architecture in Australia. The buildings are constructed from local volcanic stone and coral limestone, using techniques brought directly from Britain.

The Sunday morning service at St Barnabas Chapel (the Melanesian Mission church, the finest Victorian Gothic church in the South Pacific) or the All Saints Anglican Church (where the Pitcairn descendants still sing the hymns brought from Tahiti in 1790 and maintained through 235 years of island life) and the Kingston market (the island’s weekly fresh produce and craft market) before flying from Norfolk Island (NLK).

The Pitcairn patois (Pitkern — a creole language descended from 18th-century English and Tahitian, the first language of many Norfolk Island Pitcairn descendants and the primary language still spoken in many families at home, listed as a critically endangered language with fewer than 1,000 speakers worldwide — mostly on Norfolk Island) is the most unusual creole language in the Pacific, containing words that have not been used in English since the 18th century.