How It Began: Bringing the past to life is a regular feature of Norfolk Island's calendar, and a popular time for visitors. On the anniversaries that mark the island's most important milestones - Foundation Day in March to commemorate the landing of the first convicts and soldiers, and Bounty Day in June to mark the arrival of the Fletcher Christian and the mutineers. Costumed locals put on a display which has tourists' cameras clicking. Story by Lee Mylne
Yoga in paradise: feed body and soul and start the day with a pre-breakfast session of power yoga on the beach beside the ruins of the old convict salt house, followed by a swim in the gin-clear water of Emily Bay and lavish breakfast under the pines.
Story by Lee Atkinson
Da bass side orn Earth: Eavesdropping on the locals takes on a new dimension when you're on Norfolk Island . The lilting burr that is the language called “Norfolk" can confuse and confound you. It sounds almost like English, but not quite….just as you think you can follow it, the meaning will slip away. Norfolk Island has one of the world's rarest languages, a strange hybrid of Tahitian and Old English developed in the 18 th century by the Bounty mutineers and spoken today by their descendents. Story by Lee Mylne
Phillip Island: Hundreds of whale birds (sooty terns) are screeching and squawking around us, flapping their wings in our faces as we gingerly sidestep their spotted eggs left carelessly in the middle of the track. All around us is a barren, bright red moonscape that drops down into a roiling sea in a circle of 200-metre-high sheer cliffs, which just moments earlier, we had hauled ourselves up by rope.
We’re on Phillip Island, a tiny speck of basalt that rises from the ocean floor around 6km south of Norfolk Island. This is serious adventure stuff and about as far removed from my expectations of Norfolk Island as McDonalds is to fine dining.
Story by Lee Atkinson
Norfolk Adventures: Shaking off its reputation as a place for the "newly-wed and nearly-dead", Norfolk Island is making the most of its natural assets by developing a great range of soft adventure tours - think Harley Davidson rides, kayaking, mountain-biking, snorkelling, diving, fishing and yes, ghost tours.
Story by Lee Mylne |