Wondermondo 🢖 World 🢖 Wonders of Australia and Oceania 🢖 Wonders of Melanesia 🢖 Wonders of Australia 🢖 Wonders of Norfolk Island

Territory

Wonders of Norfolk Island

Norfolk Pines, Puppy Point, Norfolk Island. This location is a bit outside the national park
Norfolk Pines, Puppy Point, Norfolk Island. This location is a bit outside the national park / , Flickr / CC BY 2.0

WorldBlue  Highlights

Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia. This small, remote Norfolk Island contains several exciting and even unique landmarks.

Map with the described wonders

Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.

WorldViolet Top 7 wonders of Norfolk Island

Geological wonders

The Arch (Norfolk Island)

Standing cliff with a natural arch. The cliff is connected to the mainland. This is very impressive landmark but can be appreciated only from the sea level.

Cascade Creek Waterfalls

The most prominent waterfall on Norfolk island. These are two cascades on a small creek, each approximately 10 m tall, falling over basalt rock. There are more waterfalls on the island but mostly seen during the rain.

Elephant Rock

Standing cliff with natural bridge that reminds an elephant standing in water, with snout lowered in water.

Biological wonders

Norfolk Island subtropical rainforest

The last remnant (5 km²) of the unique Norfolk Island rainforest, protected by a national park. Here grow many unique endemic plants including the tallest tree fern of the world (Cyathea brownii, up to 20 m tall), Norfolk island palm (Rhopalostylis baueri), endemic orchid, and last natural stands of Norfolk pine (Araucaria heterophylla). Here lives also endemic Norfolk Parakeet (Cyanoramphus cookii), Norfolk Gerygone (Gerygone modesta), slender-billed White-eye (Zosterops tenuirostris), endemic land snails and others – in total some 50 endemic species of animals and plants.

Fish Rock Cave

An underwater cave, 120 m long. This is a beautiful monument of nature, a school of grey nurse sharks. In late summer it is filled with young sharks and numerous other sea animals.

Hollow Pine

The largest tree on Norfolk Island, a legendary Araucaria heterophylla endemic to this island. Circumference of the trunk – 9 m (other information – 11 m), height – 57 m. In this or another similar tree for seven years was hiding Barney Duffy – a fugitive prisoner.

Architecture and history wonders

Norfolk prisoner cemetery

The darkest chapter in the history of Norfolk Island is linked to the prisoner colony. The prisoner cemetery is a reminder of these events. Here are buried numerous convicts that were exiled to this remote island in the 19th century and often tormented to death or insanity. Many locals tell ghost stories about the spirits of the dead still heard and even seen at the night.

Tombstones in Kingston Graveyard, Norfolk Island
Tombstones in Kingston Graveyard, Norfolk Island / , Flickr / CC BY 2.0

WorldYellow Recommended books

Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will


The Atlas of Remote Islands, Judith Schalansky’s beautiful and deeply personal account of the islands that have held a place in her heart throughout her lifelong love of cartography, has captured the imaginations of readers everywhere. Using historic events and scientific reports as a springboard, she creates a story around each island: fantastical, inscrutable stories, mixtures of fact, and imagination that produce worlds for the reader to explore.

Norfolk


A tiny tropical paradise off the coast of Australia, Norfolk Island is notoriously laid-back, its inhabitants friendly and independent-minded. They have to be—with no defenses and no way to get immediate assistance from the mainland, Norfolk’s population learned to be self-reliant.


0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments