Day 4 on Pitcairn (Saturday 24 August)

Woo hoo we wake to a very fine and sunny day and are hoping like hell that it stays that way.  Our washing is drying so we do more today and the wind is blowing hard so it will dry.
After brekky I head down to Brendas to see what is planned – last night we decided to go down to Len Browns the islands oldest man and he is also a master carver.  On my way down I come across Emily, Lea Ann and Uschi with 2 kids (baby goats – or the island way ‘gots’)

So I decide to pat them and they are cute and cuddly

Kouta I hope you are jealous!  Now Emily is somewhat a 'Goat Whisperer' she is forever tracking down wild goats, catching them and putting them in her ''goat pen" - she has 14 and this number is growing.  This girl is 9 years old I think and is incredibly agile so is perfect for catching goats!

Once everyone is organised there is a mass exodus to Lens – Brenda is on her bike to take the kids to Sabbath School

And Lea Ann takes Uschi down

While the rest of us decide to walk down

At Lens I take a look at his work shop

Now Len does some beautiful carvings of the bounty (and I forgot to take a photo of him with one!) and some superb walking sticks with bird heads and dolphins as the handles, as well as fish with real sharks teeth, turtles and platters.  So we all buy our little curios, exhausted we take a break and have watermelon and the kids start raiding the guava tree (they are the larger yellow ones with a pink inside)

so I start raiding the mandarin tree, Neil starts scrounging for coc’nut and Uschi raids the passionfruit trees next thing we know the bikes are laden with all our stuff!

After lunch we decide that we will go pay Ms T a visit who is the islands Galapogas Tortise.  But first Brenda drops Neil and I along with Bradley and Ryan of at the ridge so we can walk down to Teds side.  I would like to remind everyone that this island is incredibly hilly so by the end of the day we were thankful that Brenda did drop us of at the ridge rather than try to walk there and then all the way back!
Making our way down the loooooong hill I turn back and realise that we will have to get back up it!

Somewhere up there is the top, these kids have so much energy and are running all over the place

Nearly down the bottom we spot Ms T

She is just resting there and we try to look for some ripe bananas to feed her.  Generally she hangs out in this area in the banana plantation (public) so Me and the boys start trapsing through the bush amongst the trees and banana trees looking but there is none so I keep heading down and think that crikey here I am going blindly down this hill in the bush and I don’t have to worry about poisonous snakes I can step anywhere as there is nothing to worry about!

I find the road again and we head down to Teds side which is where they catch the crabs for bait in the rocks

Brenda shows us where the site for the new harbour is to be – basically there is a natural harbour and there is money to reinforce it, create a road to and from it, concrete any area etc all so that cruise ships might stop by more often and that the passengers can come ashore.

We then go back to Ms T and Brenda has found some ripe bananas

We try to feed her but she either is just not hungry or is too scared to pop her head out

Around 3pm Neil, Sharon, Bradley and I decide to walk back so up the loooooong hill with a gradient anywhere from 15-25% … it took us 30 mins to walk down and 40 mins to walk up.

Relieved to get to the top we are rewarded with a lovely view of Adamstown

We decide not to continue up to the highest point – we will leave that for another day.

On our way back with pass the new location of the crusher which has been moved for the eventuality building the new harbour.

Dinner tonight was at Steve and Olives – pork, yam, broccoli, coleslaw, Olives famous fish balls wrapped in lettuce, chicken in coconut milk oh lovely and then Guava Sponge and icecream for dessert.