Arthur’s Vale

The View From My Beer

The fourth of my five-day stay in Norfolk Island. Each day I enjoyed the same view from my balcony overlooking Slaughter Bay and the original settlement of Kingston. I am enjoying a Boags Premum as I reflect on the lives on my fifth great grandparents who were part of the original landing party back in 1788 before they later moved to play a role in pioneering Tasmania.

Norfolk Island

I had hired a car, but had not made a lot of use of it so far. On my arrival on Norfolk Island my “motel” informed me that they didn’t have WiFi. The accommodation was pretty basic, but my room did have a fridge to keep my beer cold and it had an amazing view of Kingston. I was told to get WiFi I would need to go into Burnt Pine (3km away) and purchase a sim card for my phone. I went into town the next morning only to find out that Norfolk Island does not support e-Sims and it was necessary to purchase. physical sim card. The only problem with that was that my iPhone 15 doesn’t support physical sim cards. The only way I could get connection to the Internet was to visit a local pub and connect to their WiFi. At least that was my excuse for going into town once a day to buy a beer and then connect to the WiFi to catch up the news and sync my photos and FaceBook posts to the cloud.

My Walk

Having hired a car for my stay I decided to make use of it today and drive around the island to get a better feel of life on the island and to enjoy to of the rugged coastlines I had read about.

Arthurs Vale

Several signs I had read the previous day pointed out that my sixth great-grandfather Nathaniel Lucas had also been involved in the construction of the first dam and water mill on Norfolk Island at nearby Arthur’s Vale. The dam still exists, but the original watermill was destroyed when the first settlement was abandoned and another water mill was built on the site of the original mill.

Sirius Museum

I had organized a walking tour of Kingston allowing me to gather additional information about the history of Norfolk Island. This included a visit to the Sirius Museum. The HMS Sirius was the flagship of the first fleet and one of two vessels that remained in Australia from the First Fleet. These two ships provided a vital link connecting Sydney and Norfolk Island. In 1790 the HMS Sirius travelled to Norfolk Island to provide vital supplies. Due to bad weather, the passengers were offloaded on the island’s North and travelled by land to Kingston. The ship ran aground off of Slaughter Bay when it subsequently attempted to bring its cargo into Kingston. Several attempts have been made over the years to recover the remains of the ship, most of these are now housed in the Sirius Museum in Kingston.

Two of my sixth great-grandparents, Bartholemew Reardon and Mary Phillips were aboard the Sirius on that fateful journey. I therefore had a strong interest to visit the museum and take a closer look.