Day Seven and Eight
Sunday 3rd May, 2009
e didn't have anything to do today until this evening so we puttered around town, did some shopping and window shopping when I bought Neil and Radha a souvenir. Then we had coffee and raisin toast at lunchtime and went off to find the airport and see what the situation will be for Wednesday. Doesn't look as though there will be any problem, I just hope the trip home will be smoother than the one to get here!
Captain Cook's Monument
ontinued out to Captain Cooks Monument just for somewhere to go but my feet and knees were aching so much that we opted to go home and put them up. Both a bit grumpy, probably because of the late night.
onight we have a theatre restaurant style dinner called "Fletcher's Fate" which combines dinner with a theatrical examination of what happened to Fletcher Christian on Pitcairn. The story goes that he was murdered and thrown over a cliff - no grave extant. Nevertheless his name has been passed down to thousands of descendants, so he must have been a busy boy!
More later.
Later:
e had an enjoyable evening enlivened by the presence of Captain Bligh, (sitting next to me at the dinner table) and one Peter Heywood, pardoned mutineer and now a naval captain, and an American whaler, who had been with the whaling ship which discovered Pitcairn and the descendants of the mutineers. Together with three staff at the inn where we were supposed to be staying overnight and a three course meal, spicy pumpkin soup, roast pork and beef and an apple cake we took part in the quest to know what had happened to Fletcher Christian. Some said they had seen him in England, the poem of the Ancient Mariner was supposed to be based on him (don't know how) etc.
The actors weren't great, a couple were dreadful, but Captain Bligh and the innkeeper and his wife were very good. It was a different sort of evening out. We've had a few of those.
ack home we were trying to phone Geoff but the home phone went straight to voice mail and so did his mobile. Where is he?
In the end we called Bernie and asked him to check. Geoff was fine, but the phone had been slightly knocked off its cradle and he didn't realise it. Bernie got him to call us and he was OK. So that's alright.
(Don't know how much longer I can cope with this, the constant low-level anxiety interspersed with periods of high-level angst.)
Oh well.
Monday 4th May, 2009
e lounged around here until midday when we went into town and had a bite of lunch before our 4WD trip at 13:00.
The trip was not crowded, only 4 other passengers apart from us, and the driver was John Christian, our captain from the Glass Bottomed Boat, his other enterprise. He recognised us and greeted us in very friendly style, and we got into the vehicle, a large, maybe 12 - 14 seater.
Norfolk Island Forestry Commission Nursery
e drove first to the Forestry Nursery, where they are propagating Norfolk natives to replace weeds and ex-grazing properties where the trees had been cleared. John is very knowledgable about the various species (he is university qualified as a microbiologist) and told us quite a lot about them.
Looking Towards Captain Cook's Monument
hen we headed off to a cliff top lookout which had a view of Captain Cook's Monument and overlooked the bay he landed in. We had looked down from the Monument and wondered why he landed on such a stony cliff face but John says that from the sea you can see the valley between the cliffs and Captain Cook would just have walked up the valley, not climbed a cliff.
John Christian in Explanation Mode
fter this we took a rather wild ride through the Forestry area, stopping in a couple of places where there were views out to sea. Some of the trail was very rough and steep and I found myself being thrown about a bit, not very comfortable.
John showed us the native cherry guava growing and picked some for us to try. Quite sweet, sort of a mix of grape and melon.
hen we exited the forest where we had gone in at the Nursery, he took us back to his mother's house where she had made tea and coffee, scones with guava jelly and cream and a banana cake with passionfruit icing for afternoon tea. She was a very pleasant lady, originally a Quintal, a mutineer descendant. We chatted on her verandah overlooking her seven acres of garden. It was so beautiful and only five minutes from town. Then it was time to leave.
It was an interesting last excursion.
e had dinner at Hilli's, the restaurant attached to the Cyclorama gallery. It was a lovely meal, probably the best we have had. I had rack of lamb, absolutely delicious and Mac had roast pork with crackling, he thought it was great. We shared a bottle of Mateus rose and finished with mint cream brulee with a berry compote. Delish.
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