7 Destinations (and Dad Jokes) for a Last-Second Father s Day Getaway msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The one historical site Norfolk Island s extensive and dramatic British seaside penal ruins form part of the Unesco World Heritage Australian Convict Sites listing. Rivalling Port Arthur, Tasmania, for breadth and being relatively intact, the Kingston and Arthur s Vale Historic Area includes the beautifully-preserved Government House. The 1829 Georgian mansion opens to the public and visitors on select days. See norfolkisland.com.au
LAWRENCE SMITH
Norfolk Island s cemetery in Kingston houses dozens of sunken tombstones belonging to convicts and early settlers, many of whom are descendants off the HMS Bounty. The one stay Norfolk Island, unlike Lord Howe Island to which it s often compared, lacks the distinctive luxury lodge-style accommodation found on the latter isle. Some glamour wouldn t go astray on Norfolk but you won t be slumming it either at secluded King Tide House, a luxury home perched between a forest of pines and a cliff-face overlooking a bluer-than-blue Pacif
THE ONE ARTWORK
Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, is home to descendants of Fletcher Christian s 1789 Mutiny on the Bounty. Discover their story at the Fletcher s Mutiny Cyclorama, a 360 degree painting, as it brings to life this extraordinary affair and how, with the acquiescence of Queen Victoria, early mutineer descendants eventually found their way to Norfolk Island after abandoning their original Pitcairn Island home. See norfolkcyclorama.com
THE ONE VIEW
Popular Mount Pitt, at 320 metres, provides sublime panoramic views of the island and the Pacific Ocean. Special too, are the vistas and setting afforded from the Captain Cook Memorial clifftop lookout inside Norfolk Island National Park. From here, where Cook and his officers landed in 1774, a series of karsts, a Great Ocean Road in miniature, emerge from the crashing sea as migratory birds swirl above. See parksaustralia.gov.au
Flying in, I see it. Not the hulking green mass of Norfolk Island, which looks like a dairy farm plonked in the middle of the ocean, but its smaller sibling six kilometres to the south, a rugged, uninhabited (except by thousands of seabirds) red-earth island that s been called the Uluru of the Pacific .
It s called Phillip Island, and getting there involves a mini-expedition that starts with a short, often rough boat trip from Norfolk; you then have to leap ashore onto slippery, wave-sloshed rocks and scramble up ladders and ropes to reach the island s higher, drier slopes.
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On my first visit to Norfolk a few years ago, the weather had been against me. This time I ve got three days to make it happen. Not that there aren t other outdoorsy things to do while I wait.
Text by Nyn Tomkins and David Moskowitz. Photography by David Moskowitz.
HIGH ON A FORESTED MOUNTAIN in northern British Columbia, in the traditional territory of the West Moberly Dunne-za First Nations (WMFN) and Saulteau First Nations (SFN), Starr Gauthier is on patrol with a twelve-gauge shotgun slung over her shoulder and a laptop bag in hand. Starr is a Caribou Guardian charged with tending to the Klinse-za Caribou Maternity Pen built by these First Nations, as part of their effort to protect an animal that is vital to their cultures.
Starr Gauthier, member of the SFN and Caribou Guardian at the maternity pen. “Use us as an example of steps that we need to take as human beings, as guardians of Mother Earth. You know, we’re an animal too. Just like caribou. Just like bear. Just like butterflies and birds, you know what I mean? We all share Mother Earth. We’re all part of this system. This is a steppingstone. And it’s a good reminder to people that we need to t