And another thing PHIL BROWN
When I heard about that cyclone heading for Norfolk Island recently a shiver went up my spine. Nothing to do with the cyclone. It’s just that mere mention of the place gave me flashbacks to one of the most hair-raising experiences of my life.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Norfolk Island and isn’t it a part of Queensland now? Does that make it a colony? How politically incorrect. Anyway, I visited Norfolk Island once in the mid 1980s and it’s fascinating and home to ancestors of the Bounty mutineers. They even have their own lingo and I can at least say hello in Norfolk. “Wutaway you?” – it kind of means how are you going? The Norfolk dialect is a bit of West Country English mixed with Polynesian in a kind of creole. There’s a fascinating history on the island, which was once an English convict colony.
I met the bloke who ran Norfolk Island Airlines all those years ago and he invited me to go there. I was freelancing at the time and thought I’d get some good stories, which I did. Getting there was the problem and – I may have mentioned this before – I was somewhat gobsmacked to turn up at Brisbane International Airport to find the plane was a Beechcraft 12-seater.
I wanted to turn and run for my life but it was too late and I couldn’t back out. On board it was like being in the cabin of a largish car. There was no loo or facilities and the pilot had a flask of tea and coffee and a tin of biscuits to get us through the flight.
We had to stop at Lord Howe Island en route and that was one of the hairiest landings ever and we flew around that massive mountain that towers over that island and I half expected King Kong to emerge and snatch the plane from the sky.
We were buffeted then all the way to Norfolk Island and I have never been so glad to land in my life. I had a lovely visit, tried unsuccessfully to get an interview with the author Colleen Mccullough who lived there but got lots of other stories. Then of course we had to fly back to Brissie and go through the trauma all over again. With apologies to Joseph Conrad … The horror! the horror!