We have been on holiday for a week, to Norfolk Island of all places. This is a strange little Australian external territory in the Pacific about two hours flight from Sydney and home to just over 2000 people and many (mostly elderly) tourists.
It is absolutely beautiful and a wonderful place to chill for a week. My parents-in-law have gone there twice a year for at least half a dozen years; they rent a big house sometimes and family come and share part of their holiday! We went over last Sunday for a week to eat good food, walk about, see historical things and generally have a lovely time.
Norfolk is very peculiar . It had a brief period of Polynesian settlement but they all left about 1400 AD ... then the British set up a convict colony in 1788 but that failed and in 1814 they burnt all the buildings and left ... tried again with another harsh convict settlement from 1824-1855 but moved them all back to Tasmania ... then in 1856 they decided to re-settle the Pitcairn Islanders (i.e. children of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians they had kidnapped) there because Pitcairn is tiny, pointless and overcrowded. Norfolk has never had a proper jetty or harbour and only got an airfield in WWII.
So, of all the things you would expect a tiny isolated island - that is literally populated by descendants of people who tipped Bligh into a longboat - to become, would you pick a favourite haunt of senior citizens in small tour groups? There are four flights a week from Australia, and it is one of the easiest, most chill places I have ever travelled to. When we flew out we left the hire car unlocked in the airport carpark with the key under the floor mat. I will post again because we really did have a wonderful time but it was not at all what I expected.
Coincidentally, we're going to Norfolk next week. Not the same one, though.
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