On again off again!

We both slept in this morning - exhausted by battling against the wind yesterday, I’m sure. Anyway, once we were up and going we set off into town to sort out some confusion about a glass bottomed boat tour. To cut a long story short, we had received a message under our door mat yesterday informing us that our glass bottomed boat tour had been cancelled for that afternoon. The confusion arose from the fact that our tour had been booked for today, not yesterday. 

At the Pinetree Tours office, we established there had been an error and we were in fact on today’s tour which would go ahead as scheduled, the wind thankfully, having eased somewhat. With this, we drove to the Botanic Gardens and enjoyed an hour wandering around the understory and learning the names of some of the indigenous plants. Fiona also managed to spot the elusive Norfolk Island green parrot 🦜 and I took a couple of almost unidentifiable photos as evidence!  

We went to the lovely Golden Orb Cafe for our morning coffee and muffin, a hidden gem set back off the road in a delightful rainforest garden, before returning to our cottage to recuperate and psyche ourselves up for an afternoon on Emily Bay. Arriving at the appointed meeting place at 2pm we were informed that today’s glass bottomed boat tour had been cancelled! What the… ! 

Back to the Pinetree Tours Office we went, and this time opted for refunds, having no faith that the glass bottomed boat tour was ever going to go ahead.  To console ourselves we drove up to the top of Mount Pitt and then walked the summit track to Mt Bates, the highest peak on Norfolk. The panorama was stunning  

The evening’s entertainment was the famous island Progressive Dinner. The bus was loaded and we were whisked off to a mystery destination for entree, which turned out to be at the home of a Tahitian Princess who was a direct descendant from the line of mutineer Fletcher Christian. After much entertaining banter and a delicious smoked fish starter we again piled back onto the bus.

Main course was at the spectacular home of Duncan and Terri who cooked us a tasty chicken dinner with actual vegetables, before we were driven to Pauline’s house for lemon pannacotta and coffee.  We chatted happily to a variety of people over each of the courses and had a very enjoyable night.  Seems Progressive Dinners didn't die with the eighties after all, at least not on Norfolk Island.