Mount Bates

Mount Bates is the highest point on Norfolk Island at 319 metres above sea level, and the only place on the island where you can stand and see the full circumference of the island coastline in a single view. The summit is reached by a walking track that begins near the national park boundary in the island central highlands and climbs steadily through secondary forest of blackwood, crowea and the invasive asparagus fern that blankets much of the island interior. The track is well marked but steep in places, and the ground can be slippery after rain; sturdy footwear is essential rather than optional. Most visitors allow ninety minutes to two hours for the round trip from the car park to the summit and back, a distance of roughly three kilometres each way through terrain that changes from open paddock to dense scrub as the track climbs into the national park.

The view from the top repays every step of the climb. To the west, the full arc of coastline is visible from Anson Bay in the north-west clockwise around to Emily Bay and the southern headlands, the Pacific stretching uninterrupted to the horizon. On very clear days the dark smudge of New Zealand North Island can be seen on the southern horizon, though this requires exceptional visibility and is not a reliable expectation. To the east, the Coral Sea laps at the base of the sea cliffs that drop sheer into the water below Point Howe, their vertical basalt faces streaked with the orange of iron oxide and patched with the green of coastal scrub. The Norfolk Island pines on the lower slopes are visible from above as dark exclamation marks against the lighter green of the pasture, and at certain angles the reflection of one of the pines in a farm dam below creates an accidental symmetry that photographers return for repeatedly.

The forest through which the track passes is not old-growth but the product of secondary regeneration following the clearance of much of the island interior for agriculture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The biodiversity values of the scrub are modest compared to what existed before European settlement, when the island supported several endemic bird species that are now extinct. The visible evidence of land clearance — lines of old fences crossing the hillside, the pattern of pastures bounded by remnant trees — tells a story of ecological change that mirrors the human history recorded at Kingston. Birdlife along the track includes the introduced green-winged pigeon and the endemic Norfolk Island golden whistler, whose plaintive call is heard more often than the bird is seen.

It is the only location on Norfolk Island where the full island circumference and open ocean can be seen from one vantage point.

The 360-degree view makes the geographic context of the island — its volcanic origin, its position between Australia and New Zealand, and its small scale — immediately legible.

The three-kilometre walking track through changing forest is pleasant in its own right, not merely a means to the summit.