“Remember, gossip on Norfolk island is news” is one of the few gems I’ve heard on local Norfolk Radio while driving around the island. They also like to use “morla” which means tomorrow and “yorlye” which means you all. I also found out from the radio that it was indeed Smudgies’ birthday after over hearing the rumour at the coffee shop in the morning. I can also confirm the phone book does indeed have a section to find you islander mates by their nickname. I mean know one probably even knows Smudgies real name. I do know he is a painter of the tradie kind.
I spent a lot of time driving around the island discovering bays and lookouts. The island is beautiful from any angle and even today in the wet it was hard to dampen the views too much. I do not recommend entering a maze though un less yous are sure that it will not bucket down. It did help however that ord weaving spiders seemed to occupy the incorrect routes meaning finding ones way out of the maze, was simply not walking into a spiders web.
Another highlight of the island is the splendid Cyclorama, a 360 degree painting on the inside of a curved wall telling the story of the bounty crew and how they went from Tahiti, to Pitcairn island and eventually Norfolk island. A fun fact however is by the time the Bounty mutineers were actually found on Pitcairn, only one of the mutineers was still alive.
There is one thing you will notice though when you are here on Norfolk island. When it gets dark, it gets real dark, there are no street lioghts in the main town. Also there is no late night eating, 5:30-7:30 are the typical times any restaurants are open for and they have some really nice restaurants around the island, but if you don’t book you’ll be dissappointed. I did however learen something. Cows eat grass at night, they never seem to stop eating grass and they stay up later than the human locals, who disappear from the Norfolk RSL by about 7pm, just after the oath.
