I had decided in my last few weeks of freedom before starting work that I would visit one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. Pitcairn Island. Most people would only have recollection of its existence from the film portraying the events of the mutiny on the bounty - a film I have to watch now I’ve been. The other reason could have been because of the rape and underage sex scandals that were widely publicised online around 20 years ago. Let's leave that aside when considering this trip - not because it has no importance, but solely because it was not the purpose of this trip..
In order to get to Pitcairn Island, I’d flown from London to LA, to Tahiti, and then a flight to Gambiers Island, in far east, French Polynesia (there is only one flight a week), taken a boat to the main town (as the airport is on its own island, with only the airport) and then picked up a supply vessel called the MV Silver Supporter out to Pitcairn, which took two and a half days each way.
The MV Silver Supporter was a small ship (especially after just being on the ice classed vessel the MV Ocean Endeavour). I definitely had my sea legs now. For our voyage, the vessel would take us from Gambiers to Pitcairn, wait for four days, and bring us back. At the same time, it would be collecting the mail from the islanders to take it to New Zealand, after they had dropped us back in Gambiers..
I had been a little lazy when booking this trip and gone through one of my favourite travel companies, Lupine travel to book this fairly last minute, as I had been waiting for the confirmation date that my redundancy would kick in, and then the start date for a new job, so when I realised in late November, that I had two extra months to travel, it was a total bonus and I’d booked this, whilst on the way to Antarctica! The boat only took 12 passengers and for our voyage to Pitcairn, there was only 5 passengers and a transit voyage for one of the two policemen on the island - William, a kiwi. They had a year on, year off rotation, but he was filling in, short terms as there was a gap in cover.
Amongst the passengers, there was two of us that had been to the 193 UN countries, one on 189, one who had been to some of the most remote islands, in the world and one who was seasick the whole time and never spoke to the rest of us! I was lucky enough to have my own cabin, although I’d been told I'd be sharing on the way back. Luckily my cabin was on the lower deck of the ship and this meant it was most stable, being lower in the water and I enjoyed being rocked to sleep by the movement of the boat - even during the day!
On arrival in Pitcairn, we had to climb down the side of the supply vessel, using the wooden stairs and two ropes and hope that by the time you reached the bottom step, the swell, had brought the long boat up to meet you otherwise, it was a long way down! Surprisingly, there were no injuries!
Once we were all on board, we headed into Bounty Bay to meet our host families - of which, I didn’t have a clue of whom I was staying with - clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention to the instructions provided!!
Then someone called out “Hayley” and I was introduced to Olive and Steve Christian, whom I would be staying with for the next four days. Steve was a 7th generation descendant from Fletcher Christian and both Steve and Olive had been born on the island, been to school there and still lived on the island. They had the property "Big Fence" which was nearest to the Port and was on the Main Street of Adamstown, which included the police station (next door), the general store, the treasury (Bank) and post office. Further down, was the medical centre, the church and the main square which included the town hall, Bounty Anchor and the museum.
The story of the Bounty, in short, was that in 1787, the HMS Bounty, led by Captain Bligh, left England on a mission to go and get breadfruit plants from French Polynesia and transport these plants to the West Indies to feed the slaves. However after a five month stop over in Tahiti, many of the men had become disenchanted with military life and a few weeks after getting back to sea to continue their mission, on 28th April 1789, the mutiny led by acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, forced Captain Bligh and his loyalists from the ship (they would eventually get back to England to raise the alarm). Christian, the other mutineers, 12 Tahitian women and 6 Tahitian men, along with the loyalists that couldn't fit in the boat with Bligh travelled over 3,500 miles looking for an island they could live on. They eventually found Pitcairn Island which had been wrongly marked on the ships map.
Upon landing on the island at Bounty Bay, the 9 remaining mutineers, plus their now wives (nine of the Tahitian women) and the six Tahitian men sharing the remaining three Tahitian women) made a settlement for themselves. However peace and harmony didn't last long. The ship was stripped of anything useful, but them was either deliberately or accidentally burned down, leaving all the islands inhabitants stranded. Then one of the mutineers wives died, so he took one of the three Tahitian women left for the Tahitian men. Needless to say, a killing spree started over the unfairness of stealing ones wife, and then the suspicion of allegiances etc and before long, there was only Adams and Young of the original mutineers. Young later died due to asthma, and Adams was the last remaining mutineer and only man on the island. The town became called Adamstown and his grave it marked (unlike any of the other mutineers). The Christian’s and the Youngs are the two remaining families, and the Warren’s were from Norfolk Island that had moved over to Pitcairn later on.
Shinichi, the Japanese guy who’d also been on the ship, and I had similar interests of hiking and seeing as much as possible, so we decided to team up so that we wouldn’t drain the resources of the locals by doing the same things at different times, but Tuesdays was a busy work day for the islanders as the store, post office, treasury were all open, so we decided to explore ourselves, with the map provided to us. We explored the small capital of Adamstown, checked out the church, the school (that is no longer used), the Eco trail, the cannon, the bounty anchor and were heading back into town - Shinichi to get a lift back up to where he was staying with Kerry and Heather and I back to Olive and Steves when the heavens opened - proper torrential tropical rain, that lasted nearly an hour. We ran to the Treasury, which we could see was still open and hid from the rain.
After lunch I sat and chatted with Olive and Steve to try and understand a bit more about Pitcairn life and around 4pm there was a break in the rain and we started to do a round the island tour on the bikes. We’d gone to the highest point and down to St Pauls Pools, when Steve noticed, there was barely any fuel in the tank. We drove home and as we arrived, the heavens opened again. Olive handed me a beer and we continued to chat, until again it calmed down. Steve and I headed out again to finish the tour, whilst Olive made dinner. When we arrived back, Willie (the Kiwi policeman who’d been on the boat with us) was round for dinner.
The next morning after a long sleep, I had agreed to meet Shinoshi at Heather and Kerrys and we would first walk to Tedside, and in the afternoon, head down to St Pauls Pools. We had no transport so this was a hiking trip. We slightly changed our plan and headed to the highest point first, and then down to Tedside. Tedside was where the other harbour, or the back up harbour was situated, around the other side of the island and was beautiful but you could really start to see how rough the seas were around the island. The island is also a lot harder to hie around than you would expect. We walked down (me sliding, shinichi virtually running!) and eventually made it down to the harbour. The jagged coastline with the waves hitting the shore also gave us an opportunity to see the blowhole in full action. As we walked towards the harbour, between the steep cliffs (and watching for rock falls) and the coast (watching for waves) we made it across to a newly formed waterfall, from the rains the evening before and watched the waves crash over the rocks and the harbour front, crabs moving between the rocks to avoid the water. We spent around an hour admiring the beauty of this side of the island before starting the steep climb up the hill (now, nearly out of water) to head back to Heather and Kerry’s. It felt like we were walking for ages - this time, me striding out in from and Shinichi slower (I was slightly relieved he hadn’t run back up the hill as fast as he’d come down! We walked up a bit, then took a rest, before continuing.
After quite a while, we heard the sounds of a bike and very much hoped we were being rested! But it was Syd with Kate heading down for a snorkel. It was clear that with the force of the waves on the harbour, there’d be no snorkelling today but Syd picked us up, brought us back down so Kate could see was was there and then offered to drive us to St Paul’s Pools, which we readily accepted. This was totally the opposite side of the island and despite our plans, I think wee both knew we would not be able to walk down to there, after the mornings hiking. The water was so cool and welcome given the heat that had resulted from the morning sun and the storm the previous evening. We snorkelled for ages, watching the waves come crashing down between the two rock towers, being careful to stay away from that part of the pools for fear of being dragged out to sea and enjoyed our time in the water - well I did at least!
Later we headed back into town, I was shattered and after a late lunch and a beer, totally crashed out. I was woken just before 4pm, as Pirate Paul was having happy hour drinks at the Whale Tooth Bar. This bar was already well known and apart from wanting to do the shot from the whale tooth, I also wanted to sign the GB flag so show I’d been to Pitcairn. I achieved all of my goals and had a great time meeting more islanders, and visitors, some of which were staying for a number of months. After the bar, we collected our takeaways from Randy’s place and headed up to the highest point to watch the sunset. Again, I had another early night after being out in the sun way too long and over exerting myself with over zealous hiking without enough water.
The next day, I was again up bright and early as we’d arranged to go hiking to Christian’s Cave with Kerry. Kirsty also decided to come along so the four of us went off up the side of the steep cliff and crawled up as the wind hammered against us, making a challenging hike, even more so.
We got to the top of the vertical-ish climb and then had to get ourselves round on the thin shelf in order to reach the cave itself. Before climbing in, relieved to have made it, but equally concerned about trying to get back down! We enjoyed the views, took on water and chattered whilst we got out breath back
On the way back down, we took our time and learnt how to crab crawl down the challenging parts, which was most of the way, before we sat and had a rest around halfway- just taking in the views and enjoying having a rest! When we started to get cold, we kept going until we reached the sign pointing up for Christians cave and discussed what we’d do next. It was agreed upon that we’d head to Garnets Ridge hike via going to Brenda’s (Kirsty’s mum) place to collect bananas and apples, before looking for Miz T (Pitcairn’s Galapagos Tortoise) and continuing on to the hike.
Miz T was hiding behind the beehives as we were instructed. She hadn’t moved in the last few days. We spent ages trying to feed her and get photos with her. She seemed to have a preference for Pink Lady apples, and bananas. Afterwards, we continued to Garnet’s Ridge - a walk along the ridge line to a viewpoint overlooking Adamstown.
The hike again was hampered by the wind and we crawled along to avoid being blow away. Kirsty got a few photos of us when we stood up - making it look like a light breeze. By this time we were all hungry and we headed back to Kerry and Heathers for a late lunch and a natter. Later on, Kerry dropped me back into town and came in for a beer at Steve and Olives. Again I had to excuse myself for an afternoon nap, ensuring I was awake for dinner that evening at Randy’s new place up the hill.
Randy’s daughter and sister in law were heading back to school so there was a big family dinner organised. It was also a good chance to speak with a lot more of the islanders an hear their stories. Many were born there and had lived their whole lives on or most of their lives on the island.
However the island is attracting new settlers and several were in the process of getting their permanent residency (a wait of 2 years) and choosing land in order to build once they have their residency approved.
The inhabitants of Pitcairn are incredibly resourceful people. From maintaining the island themselves, from their homes, the government owned properties (such as the store, the post office, medical centre etc) the roads, the boats etc, they also need to make sure that everything they own can be multifunctional, or they have to learn the skills they ned to survive on the island. There is one supply vessel to stock the island every three months, and although regular cruise ships visit where they can sell souvenirs to tourists, the only work is what they can do on the island.
I was quite taken aback by their recycling efforts, and the way they collect all the bottles and plastic etc. All white goods are collected in case others need spare parts and any oils etc are collected too.
All the homes are powered by solar to reduce down electricity bills, and in general, the islanders support each other. There is a bakery, a take away place, a pizzeria, all run by different residents that operate on different days. There is also a tennis court (although hasn't been used in a while!) that the residents built themselves.
The residents get around the island on quad bikes. They originally had motorbikes, however the quads give more stability in the mud as the bikes used to slid around! They have literally found a solution for everything!
On my last day, I hung out around Adamstown again. Firstly sending my postcards which would not be collected from the island for another three months! so who knows when they will reach the UK going via French Polynesia and New Zealand before they are sent to the UK!! Then wondering the store, saying goodbye to Kerry at the Treasury and to the incredibly well stocked store (despite only being restocked every three months!).
Then I wandered to the museum to learn a bit more about the Bounty (described earlier).
Afterwards Syd and I went to check out Bounty Bay to see if we could get a scuba dive in, but unfortunately the conditions, like the other days were not good for diving so we gave it a miss! Instead, I went to the marine centre where guests to the island can come and do research into the marine environment around Pitcairn - the marine protected area (MPA) around the four Pitcairn Islands, that was created in 2016, is the largest in the world and boasts 4,ooo square kms. A quick trip to the prison to see what the prisoners themselves built for them to be encase rated in, and a last hike to Down Isaacs.
Om the way to the port to jump on the long boat, I got my final views over the Island from the Edge.
It was time to say goodbye to my new friends on the island. I really enjoyed my time on the island and was made to feel incredibly welcome by everyone. Massive thanks to Lupine for organising this for me! A true once in a lifetime experience!
