by Cristina Rose
Halloween on Norfolk Island is just like one big giant
island wide fancy dress party and EVERYONE is invited!
There isn’t any random door knocking wondering if anyone is
home, it is well organised by some amazing community members who not only open
up their house to the island children (and parents like me who absolutely love
the fun of this night) but spend a lot of time and thought as well as cost to
make it a memorable experience.
It starts as a call out from Spiders daughter Le Webb that
she is starting to compile ‘the list’ for this years Halloween and the
excitement starts building from there.
The children at school discuss possible costumes with their
friends and start organising who they will go trick or treating with.
In case you don’t know, it is legal for children over the
age of 5 to travel in the back of trucks here as the maximum speed limit is
50km/h. So the preferred method of travelling around on Halloween is on the
back of trucks with friends. This also allows a little more Halloween mischief
to transpire with the odd water bomb landing on cars and trucks. There is a
little posse of young teens that stake out behind the gardens on the roundabout
to surprise those travelling with a rogue water bomb. But they are not too cool
to go visiting the houses either.
Speaking of the houses, Wow!
This year there were 4 houses on the list which you may not
think is much for the whole island to visit, but we are not talking about
average houses. Each one is an adventure in themselves worth spending time in.
The 4 houses were
- Spider and Deb’s
- Jenny and Adam Jauczius
- Pixies
- Kim and Charles Christian-Bailey at Pitcairn settlers village
Spider (aka Obi wan kenobi)
greeted us with the lovely gruesome Nikita complete with plenty of large
spiders and a graveyard at the front steps. The kids were very lucky to get
some treats from local chocolatier Deb (from the seriously chocolate shop) It
was fun to see the creatures coming and going up the front path too. So much
effort in costuming, everyone looks fabulous.
The drive to the Jauczius house is an adventure in itself. There is a sign at the gate to ask us to please ring first before progressing down and up the very long single lane spooky tree lined driveway. There is no room to move over if a car comes the other way, but I haven’t heard or anyone yet who had to reverse the whole way back. Once there we were greeted at the door by the lovely witchypoo Lesley who opened the minidoor into the wonderous world of Harry Potter.
There was a fairy light tree lined path inside the garage complete with forest floor matter which led us to the lotions and potions room. Their daughter Katherine made special concoctions with the younger children while Adam and Jenny placed the sorting hat on each child’s head and told them which house they were in. Each year I love how they transform an ordinary garage space into such a wonderland of magic.
This was a room we could have
spent an age in to read each fascinating bottle label. But onto the next house
hoping to again avoid cars coming up the driveway as we are going out.
At Pixies house, she is always
the smiliest witch with the prettiest Halloween lights. Pixie also has her
house lit up with Christmas lights and we love visiting her and her inflatable
Halloween lights and bubbling cauldron. She had already gone through 2 boxes of
self pre made lolly bags when we saw her early on and was expecting so much
more as the night progressed.
Her house GLOWS at night time.
Thanks for all the treats each year Pixie.
Charles and Kim always go over
and above at Halloween since they first started decorating in their own house
in 2008, so much so that they need often a year off in between Halloweens to
get over it.
So this year was their biggest to
date and they spooked us in spectacular fashion.
Held at Pitcairn settlers village
beginning in Marie Baileys house, we were mesmerised and horrified by the very
real and high tech hologram talking to us in the crime scene of a dining room,
the portraits on the wall eerily changed as we walked past and into a room with
a twitching decapitated corpse. On the opposite side of the ‘randa sits scary
granny rocking back and forth on her rocking chair.
The red lights around the house
and in the garden reflected off the warm humid fog that had descended over the
island during the week.
The tour led by ghoulish Kimmy
with the red glowing eyes led us through the garden with more twitching ghosts
and even their children headless Liam and mummy zombie Nate got involved to
keep us on the edge, wondering what will happen next.
My Uncle Bernies old Hilman car
complete with rocking body and half corpse half hidden in the tangled forest
led us through another garden path where a vampre sat on the toilet for those
who dared to open the door.
It was funny enough to watch back
as the next unsuspecting tour group ran and screamed in fright.
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| Jasper the dinosaur wanted in on the fun so hid at the end of the path to growl at people as they passed. |
VERY well done to try not to
scare the smallest children coming through by using live actors but aimed to
mostly scare those a bit older who profess to be the bravest to Kim the tour
guide.
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| Adam and Ketherine Jauczius left their house to come and visit Charles and Kims scary masterpiece. |
Remember that this is a small community and we know just
about every child on the island, no one says you HAVE to go out trick or
treating, but by golly it is fun if you do.
And as one child (of mine) was heard saying as they left
“they ran out of lollies at the last place, but that was so cool that it didn’t
even matter”.
Maybe spare a thought for the people who put so much effort
on this amazing Halloween party and take a bottle of something in appreciation
for all they do to make it a memorable childhood experience for our kids.
THANK YOU for all you did to set up and pack up, what an
amazing night.
 |
| Last to go to sleep in this house and sad to take my Halloween facepaint off at the end of the night. I LOVE Halloweeen. |
For the adults, there was pre Halloween dress up events at
both the Leagues club and at Castaway on the weekend leading up to All Hallows
eve, So some may say as an island, we know how to party!
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| A last minute costume malfunction caused a change of plan and some quick facepainting by mum (hence the sad face) |
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| At the end of the night, it all ended well and a happier face. |
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