Norfolk Island, a former penal settlement, is now a tourist destination with stunning beaches and rich history. Photo / John Turnbull
Norfolk Island is the South Pacific’s most intriguing island, where spooky ruins meet jaw-dropping beaches, writes Susan Elliott.
My sweaty palm slips on the grip of the lantern that’s lighting the hallway of 9 Quality Row. It’s said to be Australia’s most haunted house, and I fear the glow is showing the spirits exactly where I am. Even if it’s not, they’ll hear me – tiptoeing on creaky floors is a dead giveaway.
Lantern-lit ghost tours have become a traveller’s rite of passage on Norfolk Island, as if the daylight horror stories are not terrifying enough. Once the most dreaded penal settlement in the southern hemisphere, the island’s gruesome history includes murder, torture and suicide, which earned it the nickname Hell in Paradise. Today, it’s just paradise.
Norfolk Island is a tiny volcanic outcrop – just 5km by 8km – in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and New Caledonia. Even before landing, it takes your breath away. From the plane window, you can see half a million Norfolk pines swaying like a stadium cheer squad and basalt cliffs towering over golden crescents of sand lapped by water that’s a crazy shade of blue.
The holiday fun begins as you taxi to the terminal, where keen eyes will spot a “score card” in the fire station window. Our landing rates 9/10, which brings a cheer. There are more smiles inside the terminal, where locals holler “Watawieh!” (pronounced wot-a-way). It means “How are you?” in Norf’k, one of the rarest languages in the world. It’s a lilting mix of 18th-century English and Tahitian, the linguistic legacy of one of the world’s most loved nautical tales, Mutiny on the Bounty. The reply is “kushu”, which means “great”. And you will be.
I collect my hire car, a necessity on this hilly isle with no public transport, no rideshare and just the rumour of a taxi. The handover’s hilarious – I’m told there are no traffic lights, wandering cows have right of way and it’s polite to wave at every passing car.
The waves are personal signatures, usually the lift of one finger, maybe two. It’s a charming local tradition. To add to the driving experience, thousands of feral chickens live the riddle, randomly crossing roads for no apparent reason.
While Burnt Pine is the central village, nothing – okay, maybe cows – can slow my mission to get to Emily Bay, a Unesco World Heritage site where convict ruins frame one of Australia’s prettiest beaches. Beauty and the old beast now exist in harmony.
Golden sand edges the lagoon, where a pontoon lures toe-dippers off the beach. I plunge off it and snorkel over coral bommies, fending off aatuti, Norfolk’s cheeky, territorial fish that believes it can kiss you to death with its teeny-weeny mouth.
At the end of the lagoon, Lone Pine poses like a supermodel, ever ready for a photo. Captain Cook sighted an earlier model when sailing by in 1774. He thought the pines would make perfect masts, but on learning they wouldn’t, claimed the island for the British empire and sailed on. Soon after, British convicts were shipped here and, for the next 67 years, Norfolk was a penal colony.
Then came the scions of the infamous HMS Bounty mutineers, who had been living with their Tahitian wives on Pitcairn Island. Today, around a third of Norfolk’s population are Bounty descendants.
I walk down a steep grassy track to Anson Bay, one of the most remote stretches of sand in the world, then stroll clifftops that are crowded – with petrels, gannets, sooty terns, shearwaters and the elegant red-tailed tropicbird, here to breed, nest and leave. The botanical garden is stunning, filled with rare plants and birds, like the endemic green parrot, whose numbers dwindled to fewer than 50 in the 1970s but are now up to more than 200.
The views from Norfolk Island Golf Club, with the South Pacific on one side and a 200-year-old cemetery on the other, could put you off your game. Make Norfolk Island Brewery the 19th hole, where local beers made using New Zealand barley are poured. Be sure to order the delicious bread baked using the spent grain from the brewing process.
For a big feed, head to the island fish fry at Puppy’s Point, where a sunset buffet of Tahitian food – reef fish, coconut bread, sweet potato, banana fritters and salads – is accompanied by traditional island dancing, singing and music.
When darkness falls, I’m up for another ghost tour, this time to Bloody Bridge, the site of Norfolk’s most gruesome legend. Convicts built the bridge and, according to local lore, murdered a cruel overseer with a pickaxe then buried him in the bridge’s stonework. The crime was discovered only when blood began to seep from the mortar, hence the name.
My heart thumps and the hair prickles on the back of my neck, something I thought only happened in horror novels. Australia’s most haunted house, 9 Quality Row, is close by and I’m thinking it could be a safer bet.
Norfolk Island is an External Territory of Australia. To get there, fly with Qantas from either Brisbane or Sydney.
The writer travelled at their own expense.