The Bounty Museum
The History of Norfolk Island
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Gannet - Norfolk Island
The Masked Booby is also called a Gannet. This very large and strikingly handsome sea-bird has a white body, black tail, black and white upper wing and a yellow face mask.
Gannets nest on Phillip and Nepean Islands and can be seen wheeling around the cliffs from at least August to February and sometimes for much longer.
It is a magnificent flyer, using the wind currents efficiently. You can watch one soar for ten minutes without the need of a wing flap, then, from 100 metres up, fold its wings and plummet into the sea, emerging with a fish. It is also partial to squid and flying fish. The female will lay two eggs but usually rear only one youngster which, while still in the nest, will grow to a size which appears bigger than its parent.
Harvesting Gannets began with the First British Settlement. In 1791, Lieut. Ralph Clark sent his servant and one of the Boats crew “to get Gannets for the Sake of the Feathers to make me a Bed”. They returned with only 50 Gannets. Later boats were sent to both Nepean and Phillip Islands to get both Gannets and Tropic birds for their feathers.
Reference: Norfolk Island: South Pacific island of history and many delights. Jean Edgecombe 1991.
The Australasian Gannets are very rare and are only recorded as breeding on Phillip Island in very small numbers. They have a yellow head. The Masked Boobies are much more common and also breed on the cliff line at Duncombe Bay. Males and females look the same, but the male has a whistle or hissing call, whereas the female has more of a honk / quack call. Both species occur on Norfolk and share the same Norf'k name of 'gannet'.
Gannet
Masked Booby
Norfolk Island
The island is surrounded with a rugged coastline of high cliffs fringed with the indigenous Norfolk Island pine trees (Araucaria heterophylla). The volcanic history allows for a colourful display of layers of dark lava, separated by beds of tuff and rock formed by compacted fine volcanic ash.
Norfolk Island - a volcanic island situated in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean - is about 8 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide with a total area of 3455 hectares of which more than 1000 hectares are National Parks and Reserves.
There are two other islands in the Norfolk group – Nepean and Phillip – both of which are bird sanctuaries. Neither has any human habitation. From the viewpoint of Mount Pitt and Mount Bates, which reach a height of over 305 metres, looking southward amidst the vast blue ocean lie these two smaller islands.
Norfolk Island is located in the South Pacific Ocean, 29°04 south and 167°95 east, about 6282 kilometres west south west of Pitcairn Island.
Geography
View from the sea inland - Norfolk Island
Born millions of years ago in a cataclysm of fire and brimstone, Norfolk Island and its neighbours are all that remains of a massive chain of submerged volcanoes (now known as the Norfolk Ridge) which stretched in a general line from the Isle of Pines south towards New Zealand.
The violence of this birth is still evident today in the fantastic larval monoliths carved by the elements which stand like ancient sentinels to an era long gone. Molten masterpieces ages in time, torturous patterns forged in ‘living’ lava, black, beautiful and boundless in their intricate extrusions.
The land is tempered by layers of rich red basalt soils which in turn give rise to a multitude of plant life, from the minuscule lichens to the giant fern trees and banyans, and presiding over all, the majestic Norfolk Pines, Norfolk Island’s living symbol.
At an average height of 110 metres above sea level, most of the island is on a plateau capped by Mt Pitt and Mt Bates (318 metres). With the exception of the Kingston area much of the island is protected on all sides by steep escarpments and eroded cliff faces.
Reference: The Nature of Norfolk Island by Neville Coleman - 1991.
Geology
The golf course (9-hole, par 36) is scenically situated in the Point Hunter Reserve.
The pre-World War I course was updated in the late 1920's. The convict-era home of the Stipendiary Magistrate has been restored as a club house, with a walled courtyard and an elegant verandah to watch the players and enjoy the scenery.
Open tournaments attract overseas golfers and local golfers who take part in the competitions.
So unique are the island’s customs and laws that the golf course was classified as a “common area”. Traditionally, livestock were permitted to roam freely on the course necessitating protective fences around each green so cattle could not enter and destroy those areas.
On 17 September 1986 approval was finally obtained from local Government to remove livestock from this “common area”.
Stunning views along with the remains of a rugged history, greet those who come to the Norfolk Island Golf Club.
Located within historic KAVHA and classed as a World Heritage Site, makes this setting for golf incredibly unique.
Golf
Old coloured tint photograph - Government House, Norfolk Island
Government House in Quality Row is an imposing building standing on a slight rise in spacious grounds, erected early in the Second British Settlement.
Commandants, merciful and harsh, have lived there with their wives, families and attendants; and, since the arrival of the Pitcairners in 1856, visiting Governors, Chief Magistrates, Administrators and other dignatories.
In common with the other Kingston buildings, it has its own history and romantic associations. No sentries pace now, as they did long ago, before its forbidding exterior, accented with barred windows and surrounded by an aura of uneasy authority. All is serene, and browsing cattle trample heedlessly over fields once laboriously cultivated with much sweat and bitter loathing under the overseer’s critical eye.
Reference: Rambler’s guide to Norfolk Island - Merval Hoare, 1972.
Government House
Norfolk Island Seal
The Seal of Norfolk Island was created in 1856 by Benjamin Wyon, who held the position of “Engraver of the Royal Seal of England.”
By an Order in Council in 1856 by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Norfolk Island was made a distinct and separate settlement.
Although no longer in official use, this Seal is frequently used as an emblem for Norfolk Island.
Great Seal
Green parrot - Norfolk Island
Cyanoramphus cookii
Captain Cook had commented on the Norfolk Island parrots, recognising their likeness to those in New Zealand.
(Our green parrots are closely related to the kakariki of New Zealand)
They were beautiful, chuckling, gossiping little birds with an azure flash along their wings and a big red patch, like a miner's light, on their foreheads. They lived on nuts and fruit in the forest and built nests in old tree hollows.
When new settlers cleared large areas of the parrot's country kitchen in order to plant their own crops, the birds made up for food lost in felled forests by descending on the new foods so thoughtfully provided.
This was disastrous for the settlers and also for the parrots, which were now classed as agricultural pests to be beaten off with long sticks and exterminated in every way possible. The settlers' cats and rats took toll of eggs, chicks and adult birds. Introduced Australian Red Parrots, larger and more aggressive than the Green Parrots, competed strongly for food and nesting hollows. Introduced starlings also competed for scarce nest sites.
Suddenly the islanders realised that, like so many of their other native birds, Green Parrots were on the verge of extinction. In 1983, less than 30 could be located.
Reference: Norfolk Island: South Pacific island of history and many delights. Jean Edgecombe 1991.
The green parrot is the symbol of Norfolk Island National Park and a conservation success story. Thanks to an assisted breeding program this iconic bird is recovering from near extinction.
For further updates see: Norfolk Island National Park
Green Parrot
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Corner of Queen Elizabeth Avenue and Middlegate Road
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Bounty Museum
P.O Box 69
Norfolk Island
NSW 2899
Phone: 53961