“The mind is it’s own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, hell of heaven” -Milton.
Pitcairn Island. A place today with no airstrip, no medical or shipping services and no safe harbour. Who would be so possessed to travel to such an island? To travel to ‘paradise’, one must hitch a lift in a container vessel, travelling through the Pacific or embark on a thirty hour voyage by boat to the rugged lump of rock, situated between New Zealand and Chile.
Surely Heaven is closer?
For two centuries, this land has lured adventurers and rogues to explore its mystical land, ever since Fletcher Christian and his mutineers hid on Pitcairn from the British Navy exploring a place and people which were so remote (and still are geographically), lost in time and tradition. The island itself has believed to have been inhabited by Polynesians for hundreds of years, when Pitcairn was first stumbled upon by Captain Phillip Carteret aboard HMS Swallow in 1767. It was not until twenty-two years later when the HMS Bounty arrived to Pitcairn led by Christian…without Bligh!
Let us rewind back to 1789 and the events that led to the exploration of Pitcairn…
Continue reading “A Paradise Lost: Breadfruit Bligh and the plight of Pitcairn”