Cargo, Convicts and Culture

Very wet and dreary today. 1mm of rain was forecast but we got much more than that. Apparently the rain usually falls overnight, not today. However it is July so I can’t expect a holiday without any rain.

I went down to Kingston Pier to see what was happening with the unloading of the boat. There was quite a crowd. One couple who were on the orientation tour had timed their trip to coincide with the boat as they have a container shipping company in Brisbane and pack the containers for this boat.
They had unloaded one vehicle when I got there, someone wearing a bio security jacket was going over the vehicle very carefully. I got to observe two more vehicles being unloaded. The barges don’t look big enough to hold a vehicle but they are. According to different people the unloading can take 3 hours, 3 days or 10 days depending on the cargo and the weather. The boat will apparently stay offshore for a couple of weeks as it’s not due in Australia until then and there is no charge to anchor off Norfolk Island but there is off Australia.

I did a tour of the Commissariat and No 10 Quality Row. This was a tag a long tour where we drove, following the tour guide. I had parked further away as I’d been watching the unloading and by the time I got back to my car everyone else had disappeared. The guide had mentioned something about going the back way and I eventually found them all behind the commissariat which was the store house during the second convict settlement. There have been four main settlements on Norfolk Island: Polynesian, first settlement with colonists and convicts, second settlement as a penal colony and then the Pitcairners.
There was information on all settlements but very much a focus on the penal settlement. As Norfolk Island was used as a deterrent for prisoners in other colonies it was an extremely harsh system.
The 2nd and 3rd floors were converted into a church. Evensong is held there once a month but unfortunately not the weekend I’m here.
Quality row is where the officers houses were and many of the houses still stand and are used by government workers today (the Pitcairners resided in them until about 1905 but they had fallen into disrepair as they didn’t know how to maintain them so the government took them back).
I took a look at some of the other buildings in the area as there is so much information around all the buildings.

I made my way back to Burnt Pine for a cultural tour with one of the tour companies. We went to a private home and did some weaving of a flax leaf while the host spoke of the Tahitian traditions that have been passed down. Her first language is Norfuk and she only learnt English when she started school.
We made a simple decoration and I found the weaving relatively easy. Quarantine means we can’t bring them back to Australia although if we were here long enough for them to completely dry they would be allowed in.
We finished up with an afternoon tea of local foods. Most people garden here as imported fruit and veg is very expensive. They also have chooks and pigs or cows. Dairy production more or less stopped with the introduction of pasteurisation laws as no one had the electricity to do it so the cows are all beef cattle. The butchers have their own meat rooms to process animals. We had pumpkin and rocket frittata and fish cakes served with avocado, beetroot relish and green tomato relish. The avocados have all cross pollinated and it’s estimated there are around 40 different varieties on the island.
Finished up with a banana.
A great day with a lot of variety.Read more