First Park Run in 9 months

 I used to go for a Park Run every Saturday morning at 8 am, but that halted in early March because of COVID-19. Given that we had up to 200 runners and social distancing would be very difficult with that number of participants, the event has has been in abeyance until now.

So today I joined maybe 50 others on the first run in 9 months. Organisers offered two alternative routes, one 5 km and the other 2 km. I chose the latter because of lack of running practice over the longer distance and I didn't want a second round cardiac arrest. 

I was able to run half the distance and walked the rest, albeit at a fast pace - not bad for a 75 year old. I was first back for my category in record time, but only because I was the only performer to select the short route!! Here we are assembling at the start on a brilliantly clear sunny morning. Even at 8 am the temperature must have been around 19 to 20 C.

And here's a selfie. Apologies for the expression. I wasn't as fearful as I look, but I was looking towards the sun!

AS

Other great sites on Norfolk Island

 In my last post on our visit to Norfolk Island, I will focus on several the many other sites we visited and explored over our 5 full days there. Sometimes we made our way around the island in the hire car we had provided for almost the entire trip. On other occasions we were on guided tours. Both means of getting around were great. On one guided tour we visited a pretty church way out of town.

One evening we heard about a food fest down at the remains of the Kingston prison. It was a lovely and lively evening out with masses of people visiting the various ethnic food stalls and consuming their purchases at the tables and chairs provided.

On another occasion, using our hire car, we made it to the top of Mount Pitt, presumably named after the British Prime Minister in the middle of the 18th century. As the sign says, it is about 318 m high and just short of the highest point - Mount Bates. We had an excellent view over the whole island from this vantage point.

These following pictures show some of the views, including the island's international airport!

The island's Botanic Gardens lay close by and we explored them avidly.

On another occasion, we visited a lovely museum at Kingston that was home to one of the principal managers of the convict prison back in the early to mi 19th cecntury.

And here's a rear view of Dot inspecting the kitchen area

We sure did a lot in just a little time - all of it enjoyable.

AS

Dead Centre of Town

Towards the end of our stay on Norfolk Island, we decided - out of curiosity - to visit its cemetery. Two things we immediately obvious. Part of it held the remains of prisoners and their supervisors - dating from the period 1825 to 1855 when the island was home to repeat offenders from the penal colony of New South Wales. What struck us was the incredibly young age of most of the deceased - often in the 20 to 40 age bracket. More alarming still was the high proportion who died from drowning!

These first two pictures are general views taken from the western where many of the island's deceased residents from convict days are buried. I don't think I've seen a more picturesque cemetery anywhere else. 

These, in particular, were the graves of convicts and their guardians.

Here, for example, are several sad stories of drownings and accidental shootings among the officers of the penal colony.

Some, of course met a sticky end.

After the closure of the prison in 1855, the entire population returned to the mainland and Norfolk Island had no population. This news must have reached Pitcairn Island, which is still a British possession, quite quickly. Pitcairn island, one of a group of 5, was only a tiny 5 sq km in size and occupied by mutineers from the Bounty (spelt Baunti on Norfolk Island) and their mainly Tahitian wives. Pitcairn, it seems, was too small to sustain them, so they petitioned Queen Victoria to give them Norfolk Island (34.6 sq km) as a new home. This wish was granted, and a group of 94 people from Pitcairn arrived at their new home in 1856. Some had the surnames of Baunti mutineers: Adams, Christian, McCoy, Quintal, and Young. Others had Pitcairn surnames derived from free settlers: Buffett, Evans and Nobbs. 

What amazed us was the high proportion of graves with all these surnames etched into the head-stones. Here' for example, lie the remains of two Buffetts, one with the same first name as our daughter Emily. She reached the ripe old age of 80. Her husband did even better and reached 90. I wonder if he's related to the famous Warren Buffett who runs Berkshire Hathaway, is also 90 years old, and is worth roughly US$80 billion.

And blow me down if we didn't see the grave of the famous Australian author, Colleen McCullouch.

Her lie two Baileys, one of whom nearly made it to 90.

And, for my last picture, here is the grave of a Christian - the most prominent surname on the island. This one caught my eye because he was a MAXWELL!! That's also the name of one our grand-kids. Note, too, he almost made it to 80.

I wonder if life on a beautiful and peaceful island encourages longevity, apart of course from when one drowns or is executed. Hmmm. I might weigh up migrating to Norfolk island!!

AS

Burnt Pine; NI's Commercial Hub

Whilst on Norfolk Island (NI), we stayed in the township of Burnt Pine. Whilst it has a typically Australian small-town configuration in many ways, it also differs in several respects. Let's find out what I mean by those remarks. 

This is Taylors Road next to the Aloha Apartments where we were staying. There's a huge number of such places on NI and especially at Burnt Pine, due to tourism being the island's main activity. I took this picture out of trading hours so the road was largely empty. In business hours the roads are crawling with cars.

I liked to see this kind of advertorial on the pavements, this one showing a map of the island.

Believe it or not, NI's small population of just 1,748 - as of the 2016 census - can support a purpose-built shopping mall with a supermarket and so on. Mind you, we should add in large number of tourists for much of the year given the island's sub-tropical location.

Towards the eastern end of the shopping centre I came across the green-roofed store with grandson Max's written in red on the green roof. He's just landed his first job with K Mart at age 16, but I was unaware of his owning a store on NI.

More views of shops on an early morning walk - again no traffic. The famous and beautiful Norfolk Pines are everywhere.

The shot below aroused my interest, but after several attempts I still couldn't find the tomb and must presume it's still in Egypt.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, the shopping centre comes alive with heaps of vehicles vying for the angle parking slots like those show here.

Nearby this board shown below sets out residents' distress at having decision-making powers largely removed off-shore to Canberra. The adjacent park has hand symbols and names of all those locals seeking to have powers restored to NI residents.

More picturesque views of the town.

Now for some strange observations. Firstly, Burnt Pine is awash in cafes. This probably reflects the large visitor numbers with time on their hands and a desire to take breakfast and / or lunch out of their accommodation. Perhaps also, locals wish to meet up with each other. This option probably reflects the fact that few locals appear to live in suburban homes like they do in most towns and cities I know. It seemed to me, driving around the island, most people live on what we, on the mainland, call rural residential allotments (maybe up to 5 hectares in size) or larger hobby farms. The island is heavily dotted with these kinds of homes.

AS

Norfolk Island's Picturesque Coastline

Watawieh? This means 'how are you?' in the Norfolk Island language. This lingo is a mixture of (a) English and (b) Tahiti's language. It is still spoken by many locals, though of course everyone also speaks English.

Dot and I have just spent 5 full days on Norfolk Island (NI). Our holiday there was prompted by the fact that we wanted to travel overseas and selected this destination for travel in April this year. We were attracted by the island's great history and its beautiful scenery, but alas the April visit was cancelled because of COVID-19 and the islander's fear that their medical services could not cope if the virus were to be imported.

Travel restrictions were recently lifted and we quickly rebooked our trip overseas. NI is not, of course, a foreign country. It is part of Australia and partly administered from Canberra albeit with some local government role on the island itself. Interestingly, we needed to depart from Sydney's international terminal to get there and had to go through all the usual international travel hurdles. Also, we flew with Air New Zealand - apparently no Australian airline currently has connections with NI.

This, the first of several posts, focuses on the island's fantastic coastal scenery. It just blew us away and I suspect that my photos will lure some of my readers there. By the way, our visit was generally warm to hot. NI lies just 29 degrees south and borders on the Coral Sea. In the last few days, Australia has had some of the warmest November days ever and when we arrived back in Sydney the temperature was 40 C!

Himii staat! Let's go! Have a look at this gorgeous scenery:

This was our first view of the coastline during an escorted tour to the former convict settlement of  Kingston. Nice spot to be detained, but judging from the cemetery headstones many died young.

In this and the picture below, we're looking at a range of administrative and residential buildings much more upmarket than the jail areas

Note the Norfolk Pine to the right of this picture. It's a great tree native to the island and its trunk is usually entirely vertical.

We were obviously not the first visitors to this spot. The Queen beat us by almost 50 years when she arrived precisely 200 years after the famous James Cook discovered the island.

Shhhhhh! This lovely little cove - sheltered from the ocean by a reef - is named after our daughter, Emily. It's Emily Bay. And it's flat waters are ideal for swimming  ... not that we did. And look at the lone pine below.

And guess who this dude is! 

I bet you'll get the answer right.

All these photos demonstrate just how beautiful the coastline is. Over the 5 days we drove much of the coastline in the car that was provided for us as part of the holiday package. We were independently mobile, which suited us fine. However, each day had organised trips to discover the wider history and culture of NI.

Occasionally a notice-board would identify key dates and people who drove the development of the island

Here we found some more detailed information about how James Cook discovered NI back in 1774. That was before he even reached Australia itself.

Around this location we had to keep an eye out for Mutton Birds who dig holes in the ground for their nests. We didn't want to twist ankles!

Back in the past, this jetty helped transfer goods destined for NI from ships offshore.

When we visited we found that it is now used to transfer recreational vessels from trailers on to the water.

Also it seems that those boats are often used to go fishing.

The bloke shown here was processing one of his catches and keeping the nice bits, probably for either personal or business consumption.

 

After this process the fish's remains looked like this.

Some of the remainder was also tossed into the water to feed a swarm of sharks. No wonder swimmers were remarkably absent from nearby water.

I can't resist showing two more pictures of Emily Bay. The waters had many lovely shades of blue.

Gubai. Si yu lieta anieh. This means "Goodbye. I'll see you later".