Quiet Sunday

A quiet day today. I don’t always attend church when I’m away but when it works out I’m glad I did it. I had a choice of Anglican, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist (although their service was yesterday), Living Faith Church (a Pentecostal church), Uniting Church and the Norfolk Island Community Church.
Generally when I travel and there’s a choice I choose an Anglican service. The Anglican services here are held at the St Barnabas Chapel which we visited yesterday. It’s a beautiful stone church that was built for the Micronesian Mission in the island and left behind when the mission left the island.
It was a very different service to what I am used to. We started with a prayer the last mutineer John Adams, wrote. There was only an organist to accompany the hymns and we used hymn books. There were about 40 people in attendance and I was made to feel welcome.
I did overhear a conversation in Norfuk, the language of the Pitcairners. Until today I’d only heard a few words.

I then went down to the Botanical Gardens and did several of the walks there. The gardens were started to grow some of the plants/trees that were endemic to the island and in danger of extinction due to the clearing of land.
It was a cool day anyway and quite cold in the gardens.

From there I went down to the Cascade Pier. There are two piers on the island, Cascade is on the east side, Kingston on the south. The weather and tides dictate which pier is used. It was high tide when I was down there and quite rough.

Sometimes I find the journey is more interesting than the destination and that was the case with the Cockpit Waterfall. It was a nice drive along Prince Philip Dr but I realised I had gone past where the fall should have been with no sign of the falls. I’d been using a paper map as I didn’t seem to have an internet connection after losing it at the botanical garden and the map didn’t have a definite road to the falls. I backtracked a bit and took a very minor road that wasn’t on the map to end up in a paddock. A short walk led me to the falls and they were underwhelming to say the least. Apparently they are better after rain.
Still it was a nice drive and walk.

From there I explored a few different roads and then went down to Kingston pier. One of the tour drivers yesterday had said the supply boat was due today. They thought it would come to Cascade Pier but it was anchored off Kingston Pier. It’s apparently the MV Norfolk and is due tomorrow. The ship can’t come to the pier, everything is loaded onto barges and brought to the pier. There was nothing happening today and as the due date is tomorrow I’m thinking it will be unloaded then. Tomorrow’s plan is to explore Kingston so hopefully I’ll see something.

Home then for a very late lunch and then sat down to catch up with the Olympics, read my book and have a nap.Weiterlesen