Welcome to Norfolk Island, a small island that lies some 1700 kilometres or so off the east coast of mainland Australia, almost midway between New Caledonia and New Zealand. I’ve just spent a week here… Get ready for an interesting island ride…and some fun facts.

Cow /kaʊ/

Noun:
1. A fully grown female animal of a domesticated breed of ox, kept to produce milk or beef.
“a dairy cow”.

2. The female of certain other large animals, for example elephant, rhinoceros, whale, or seal.

3. An unpleasant or disliked woman.

In this post I am referring to description one – although I have seen and met the descriptions of two and three, once or twice before….

Cows have right of way on the roads and wander freely throughout Norfolk Island. This is why the speed limit is 50 kms on the highway, 40 kms in town and 30 kms outside the school – O.K. the 30 kms outside the school is as there are kids around.

Each cow must be registered and there is a yearly registration fee of AU$130 per cow. Each person is allowed a maximum of 10 cows – although there is no minimum age to own and register cows…mum, dad, the kids, all the household may register 10 each. The fine for hitting a cow is AU$200, plus costs of the cow to owner of said cow (which may include how many calves they potentially could still produce).

On Norfolk Island, the cows primary purpose is to chew the grass – lawn mowers are not required. Their secondary purpose is…. well, these are beef cows not milking cows……(I may have a ‘mixed’ understanding of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ when it comes to the cows ‘purpose’ on the island).

Other than their lawn keeping ability, other reasons for letting them wander freely is the scarcity of land, not everyone owns a farm. This saves on importing meat – the importation costs and exporting local money – from New Zealand or Australia, keeping the local money in circulation. And when meat is imported, it usually comes vacuum wrapped in…..plastic…..

I thought the prices were quite reasonable, although I don’t eat much red meat – I’m more ‘Pollo-Pescatarian’ these days, I do still buy and cook it for others and an Aussie butcher friend of mine did mention he thought the same – and it looked very fresh.

Nope – not my dinner, but it was apparently tasty nonetheless…

Come to Norfolk Island, It’s a wonderfully interesting island.

No cow was injured by driving and all thoughts are independent thoughts of Matty Somewhere who paid for his own trip to Norfolk Island.