2002-01-26

Well, I have been back from Norfolk Island for a week now but life has abducted me, so I have not been able to write my travelogue. The ravages of work commitments. Upon my return to Newcastle, I had committed myself to deliver two workshops for the Palais Youth Venue, one on zine making on Tuesday, and one on HTML on Wednesday. And TAFE had called me up to work on Thursday and Friday.

The zine workshop went really well, with two 10 year olds and two 17 year olds turning up. Quite a broad group to work with, but we had some fun.One of the 10 year olds, a boy, was mad on skateboarding, so his story in the zine was about his favourite skateboarding brands and was accompanied by some pictures of his favourite half pipes and the like. That young fella also did the cover and named our zine "5 People's zine", cuz there were five of us. Yeh. One of the 17 year olds was quite au fait with zines and had brought lots of her own work. She admitted that her room was trashed by random pieces of paper she could never bear to throw away. I asked her if she always cut things out of the newspaper, and when she said she did, I told her she was a zinester waiting to happen. I hope she makes a zine. The zine is cute, with a very funny review of Swansea Caravan Park, some really silly comics and some nice reviews. Hah!

The HTML workshop was a bit more daunting. I had feverishly put together some notes the night before, and as usual was apprehensive about the equipment at the Octapod, where the workshop was to be held. Everytime I give a workshop there, I get feverish, and none of the gear works for me. I cringe everytime. But the teck wizard (and I mean wizard, as he dresses not unlike one) turned up 15 mins before I was due to start and set up the audio visual gear so I could teach on the big screen. I got nervous again when I saw the class was made up of 4 kids aged from 10 to 12 years. I had never tuaght such a young group, and I had no idea how I would convey the coding joys of HTML to them. Gulp!

But it went pretty good, with the four kids being precocious as all hell and intelligent to boot. It gave me a great high to give them the knowledge and see them use it. At the end of the day I had nervous exhaustion but was on cloud nine from my achievement.

My new job at the TAFE is as a mentor. That means I teach teachers about HTML, MS Frontpage and the internet. And, see the thing is, I had never used MS Frontpage before. Its a Microsoft web page building tool, and you would never catch me using it. So I bluffed my way in and had to teach one of the TAFE workers Frontpage. In three days time. I didn't know the software, couldn't get a copy of it and was a bit high and dry. A ha! I called my office at TAFE, the 'Innovations' unit to ask if I could borrow a laptop with Frontpage on it, cuz "I hadn't used it for a couple of years" and I wanted to be sure I was "up with the latest version of the software". K-ching! I had a copy of the software and proceeded to speed learn it the evening before I was due to teach it. Not only did I have to learn it, I had to create tutorials in building a mock webpage! Goodness me! How do I get into these messes! But in true purry form, I made it and arrived at the campus to deliver a fairly successful lesson to an eager student. Er, teacher. My student, a teacher. And that night, I stayed up with the software 'til late, building the tutorial for the next days lesson. Oh, yeh, I'm a seat of the pants kinda girl. But its great money, well worth my efforts.

So yeh, Norfolk...

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Norfolk Island is fairly pretty, very hilly and surrounded predominantly by cliff faces. There is no port or harbour, so ships cannot dock. The container ship carrying vital supplies every 6 weeks must anchoor some way out too sea and load its cargo onto smaller boats that are taken to the rocky shore, where a peir has been built and a crane lifts the goods of the small boat. These goods may include cars and tourist buses (two boats are lashed together for the buses), inn fact everything on the island: furniture, machinery, building materials, whitegood, electrical stuff...EVERYTHING.

So its a far less spoiled existence on Norfolk, as there is much effort in gettnig anything to the island. Nothing seems to be taken for granted and people try to use what they have on hand.

The part about rocky cliffs all around the island means that it is not a tropical paradise as I had imagined. There was only one beach, though it was a very beautiful one surrounded by a reef. This meant there were no waves and it was a perfectly pleasant place to swim. The water was a dreamy aquamarine colour, and I felt quite luxurious swimming about in it, as I did daily. I swamin the rain one day, desperate not to miss a single opportunity to swim in the beautiful waters.

The brochures boast about the fabulous shopping on the island. They boast becuz Norfolk Island does not really have any taxes to speak of: no income tax, GST, duties or sales tax. As such, many goods are very cheap. Its just that the range of goods speaks volumes about the usual clientele of the island. Its pretty much a paradise for the older generation, with lots of bus tours and quiet pursuits and a very conservative population. The goods consisted of a lot of Royal Doulton and other kinds of chinaware, expensive perfumes with shoes and apparel to suit the dead boring and old.

I felt a bit sorry for my 15 year old brother over the week, as it was not a place conducive to a young fellow who is used to being able to fulfill his every whim. There were only three T channels (ABC, SBS and channel 7 beamed in from central Queensland), not much in the way of convenience foods and he was nonplussed by the fishing gear we had hired for him. Luckily, I could do one thing for him, and that was pay for him to go out to sea on a fishing boat. He's a mad keen fisherman, and had never been out to sea before. He said he really enjoyed it except for getting heinously sea sick for a couple of hours. Poor boy....

Whilst my brother went out to sea, my mother and I went horseriding. Now, I was ahorsegirl as a child, riding pretty much daily for much of my life, and often riding competitively. The day I left home was the day I left that behind, and I had not been on a horse for 11 years. Wow, it seems so long when I write that, and makes me feel old (well, I am 29 in 5 weeks). Anyhow, I decided I would go riding with mum, but was dreadfully scared of being sore between my legs for the rest of the trip. Getting back on a horse didn't phase me, but its was a given that it would torture my leg muscles. The ride was supposed to go into the national park, though, I feel like we only grazed its edge. Regardless, the mornign tea of billy tea and damper was charming and tasty. Mother and I had a good time.

Feeling like a tourist did make me anxious though. Most of the population is involved in tourism somehow, and I feel like everyone is kow towing to me, trying to make me happy. I kinda don't like that. It makes me feel a bit dirty and stuff.

I'll continue this later, as I have to go prepare for some hot rock action as the Bitchcraft rocks the house tonight.

Animals are everywhere. Cows roam the streets, and have right of way on the roads. Feral chickens cruise around with their ever so cute little chicks. Geese and ducks squark around the convict ruins of Kingston.