Give way to the cows! Thats the first thing anyone says when driving around Norfolk Island. However its not the only quirk this pictureque island in the Pacific has. Firstly its an overseas territory administered by the Australian Government. Since 2015 this has not been seen as a good thing, when the Australian government removed the self governing Norfolk Island government. It was still controlled by Australia then, but the locals had a say in running the island and not its a hotly contested topic I intend to stay well away from.
Secondly, everyone waves as they pass you when driving. While, it would be easy to assum they know each other, they probably don’t. Over 2000 permanent residents, plus hundreds of tourists arrive each day. Still I’ve become local and just raise a few fingers off the steering wheel just like the locals do.
They have a local radio station, that seemed to play mostly hits of the 80’s which i was perfectly ok with. This was interrupted with some local personalities talking football, but when they talk football they talk about it from the perspective of who supports that team on the island.
Finally, they have their own language here, but I’ve yet to hear it spoken. Apparently they don’t tend to speak Norf’k around visitors, but the tourist centre handed me a helpful guide to Norf’k. Some sample words to close of this blog. You can see there is derivations from older english and a mix of poylnesian as well.
Hello = Watawieh
What is your name? = Wats yus niem?
Where are you going? = Wesaid yu gwen?
