Jane Wright enjoyed her Pacific sojourn

Seventeen of us set off for a seven-day tour of Norfolk Island, with our knowledgeable shepherd Graeme Platt at the helm. Norfolk Island is a great place, about 3455 hectares in area, much of which has been developed or at least cut over at some stage, its coastline is rugged and wild, so much so that access by sea is limited to small boats that can be lifted in and out of the water on nice days only. There is no wharf that a container ship can come to so any freight arriving by sea waits on the ship until the sea conditions are calm enough to load into 30 foot long lighters (made of Norfolk Island Araucaria!) then they are towed into shore and offloaded onto a jetty. Most of the islands supplies arrive that way, asphalt, trucks, horses, non-perishables for the shops. We were lucky enough to see this in action on our second day, the supply ship had been anchored and waiting to unload for two weeks.

Norfolk Island might have a reputation as a place for oldies but there is loads of outdoorsy stuff to do, walking, fishing, surfing, swimming, and diving. None of us had the urge to dive after we went fishing. The boat went out 8 miles to sea to a reef. We fished with 150lb hand linesand as soon as your line hit the bottom you had one or two fish on. Speed was the key to getting your catch up to the surface before the bronze whaler sharks had an easy feed off your line. Good fun and five of us caught three bins of fish in a little over an hour.

Enough about that you say, I know you are really interested in the plants, after all that was why we were all there. But before I launch into that you need to know that Norfolk Island is about 3.5 million years old, and is the emergent tip of a massive volcano that is part of a volcanic chain of now submerged islands running from New Zealand to New Caledonia that we know as the Norfolk Ridge. In previous ice ages when sea levels were lower the Norfolk Ridge would have formed a loose chain of islands allowing movement of vegetation, some of which now only occurs on Norfolk Island today. Plenty of plants on the island are cosmopolitan and are widely spread throughout Asia and the Pacific, but most of the 170 species of Norfolk's native flora have ancestors from either New Zealand or New Caledonia, a few from Lord Howe and fewer still from Australia. With a few exceptions these plants are slightly modified versions of species growing elsewhere. There were 15 species of endemic birds at European arrival, so you could imagine the mass of “nutrient” that would have been deposited to feed the forest. Today there are only a few areas left on the island where birds roost and breed so there is not as much of the marine nutrient being deposited and perhaps the vegetation is poorer for that. The Norfolk Island icon, Araucaria heterophylla, dominates every ecological niche on the Island. In the most favourable growing areas they can grow to 70 metres with a girth of 2 metres although the trees will be considerably smaller as growing conditions get tougher. These trees have massive root systems that can radiate up to 25 metres from the trunk. The radiating roots send down pegs into the soil to anchor them and more roots from these pegs find water and nutrients. The root systems anchor the tree firmly in the ground and almost make a healthy tree hurricane proof. The timber is valued by the islanders who use all that the island produces. Araucaria heterophylla is used as a forestry tree and is planted in plantations on the island. The oldest plantation of trees is at the Hundred Acre Reserve where some of the trees are over 80 years old.

We had an interesting visit to the Island's saw mill and saw examples of cut and unmilled timber. The islanders need to apply for a permit before they are able to mill a tree to protect the remaining Auracaria from indiscriminate felling, unless a tree is deemed dangerous by a forestry officer then it can be harvested for timber.The island is now highly modified; much of the natural vegetation has been cleared to make way for farming, orchards and crops. In 1986 a National Park was formed to protect 460 hectares of forest on the slopes of Mt Bates and Mt Pitt. This secured water catchment and protects a scenic part of the island.

For me perhaps one of the most interesting days was spent walking through the forest reserve with a former Parks staff member Margaret Christian. She is passionate and knowledgeable about the Island's ecology and provided us with great insight to some of the issues that face it, both past and present. Margaret was part of a group who identified there were only 3-4 female plants of endemic Meryta left, hand pollinated these and propagated the offspring to make this a popular plant on the island. There are only about 20 king fern left, Pouteria costata is in decline, it needs the now extinct wood pigeon to distribute its fruit, Streblus pendulinus or Sia's Backbone has leaves like sandpaper and was used for finishing woodwork, it is now very rare and seldom seeds. Sadly the list goes on and 100 of the 170 native species are considered at risk, and a number are already listed as extinct. The natural ecology is almost gone, forests are highly modified, and contain some bad weeds Schinus terebinthifolius, African olive, red guava are the all problems. Guava grows well in understory and prevents other plants from establishing around it. However, people are aware of this situation and some effort is being put into woody weed control and conservation and re-establishment of native species. Its not all doom and gloom but there is a long way to go.

At the end of the tour we had all been thoroughly exposed to both the ecology and experienced some of the culture of the island. On behalf of our group I would like to thank Graeme and Rosemary for sharing their knowledge, patience and passion with us. That made it a truly great trip.