Oct. 20, 2024 (Sunday)
Go ahead—try to find Norfolk Island on a map. I'll wait. Good luck. I’ve spent most of the day on a rock in the middle of the sea. We are NOWHERE.
And yet, this island!! Wow!
You might say that my reaction is largely based on the fact that we’ve left the tropics. We’re in temperate climes. The air was cool and dry and utterly delicious. It was so chilly that we needed jackets—or rather, raincoats because the ride in on the Zodiaks was a wicked pissah. (I’ve unreasonably gone Boston, but the phrase so nicely encapsulates the combo of “oh shit” and “fuck yeah” that I felt I had no choice.)
The waves were slamming into the island, but if not for the courage of the fearless crew…we made it ashore, drenched from sea spray and realizing we are not NEARLY as nimble as the ABSeas are—and fully delighting in the air. We boarded busses and did a tour—had lunch—did more of a tour. The first bus broke down before lunch, the second bus limped back to the starting point in a heavily-protesting first gear, but what did we care?
There were several jaw-dropping highlights to my day. The first was getting a look at the many clusters of Norfolk pines. I think I’ve heard of Norfolk pines before; I even think I’ve seen them in the gardens of people who are professionally landscaped—but seeing them in their natural habitat forced me to take literally dozens of photos just so I could look at a good one while describing them. And here’s what I’ve got:
They look like they’re made of plastic. Or Lego. A tall, straight trunk holds peculiarly-spaced branches which appear in symmetrical formation—always coming out of the trunk in clusters. Like some distracted god started making a ladder and then forgot the second upright. Sometimes the branches curve upward gently like an umbrella; sometimes their elbows are straight, as it were, like a cheerleader throwing her hands to the sky in a V shape. Each branch is fringed with heavy-gauge plastic (not really) that points straight up.
One tree by itself is startling. A group of them along a ridge creates a skyline that looks like a whole cluster of kindergarteners was let loose on a wall. “Everyone draw a Christmas tree!” Some are umbrella branches, some are cheerleader branches. Some have four tiers of long pine needles, some have twenty. It is pure, innocent, joyous anarchy. I was dazzled.
I have no explanation for why I also think these Norfolk pines look prehistoric, but I do. Like any minute, a brachiosaurus is going to wander by.
NEXT dazzler: We were taken to a cemetery where Australian author Colleen McCullough is buried (she wrote “The Thornbirds”)—as were all the people from the earliest days of the settlement, including descendants of the Pitcairn Islanders who’d mutineered from the HMS Bounty. And since Fletcher Christian and all the other mutineers had bred eagerly with lots of Tahitian women, there were huge chunks of the cemetery devoted to descendants with the last name Christian (as well as a few others). But more importantly were these amazing headstones for people who had been officers at the penal colony that Britain (of course) set up on the island.
Frank Warren. Probably a relative of mine. And done in by a Greek miscreant! Now THAT'S a noteworthy death.
The thing about island life is that you’ve got a LOT of time to make the headstones you want, so the older stones had huge volumes of information on them.
It was wrong to be entertained by gravestones, so let’s say I found them historically fascinating—and maybe the source of names for my next romcom novel. Fortescue. Man, that’s a romcom hero’s name, huh?
Even the more modern headstones told a story.
How did a guy named Charles come to be known as "Dick?" And how awesome was it that his wife, who died at the age of 102, went by the name "Girlie?" I love cemeteries. Twig found a headstone for a guy who was killed “accidentally by a whale.” We assume the whale felt badly about it afterwards.
THIRD dazzler: We were driven to a spot where four mind-blowingly enormous Morton Island Fig Trees were growing, their huge roots snaking together. Big photo op there.
And Elizabeth the Swede took a panorama of Kura, who raced around behind Elizabeth to show up in the next section of the photo as she panned slowly around, a photo I found so entertaining that I insisted Kura airdrop it to me.
And FINALLY, on this rock in the middle of nowhere—population 2,200—we came to a church. I’m not particularly happy with formalized religion, but I DO like church architecture, so I went in. They had unusually beautiful stained glass—and the guide explained that the five figures at the apse were the four gospel guys (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and Jesus, and that they had been designed by the head honcho of the pre-Raphaelite movement, Edward Burne-Jones. What? You’re kidding? You’re NOT kidding? Holy shit. I'm sorry this photo is so blurry.
But the rose window over the narthex was even better—it had been designed by William Morris himself, using plants found on the island. Oh, SHUT up. You do not have a William Morris original stained glass window on your tiny island in the middle of the Pacific! Yes, we do—and no insurance company will insure them, so they’re all faced with bulletproof glass.
Well, shet my mouth.
All that AND delicious, cool, dry air. Plus just two days earlier, they’d seen a large pod of gray whales pretty much exactly where the Orion was moored. So now it’s time to stare hopefully out the window.
Yeah. Norfolk Island. You TOTALLY impressed me.
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