Beautifully green and lush, and with a population you could easily seat in a city bus, tiny Pitcairn is most famous as the hideaway settlement for the notorious HMS Bounty mutineers. lronically, more than 200 years later, it’s one of the last remnants of the British Empire that Fletcher Christian and his gang rebelled against.

With points interest with names like John Catch-a-Cow and Bitey Bitey, the antiquated language of the mutineers’ descendants is an attraction in itself.

April to October (the dry season)

Catching up with the HMS Bounty mutineers on Pitcairn-there are several relics, along with Fletcher Christian’s cave Beachcombing by the beautiful lagoon on Ducie Atoll Birdwatching on Henderson lsland with its unique makatea (raised coral island) geology Reading pre-European history in the mysterious Polynesian petroglyphs carved into the rocks at Down Rope

Read Fragile by Glynn Christian (Fletcher’s great-great-great-great-grandson), an investigation of the mutiny and the mutineers’ fate on Pitcairn

Watch the original film about the mutiny, ln the Wake of the Bounty (1933)-filmed in Pitcairn, Tahiti and Australia, and starring a young Errol, or Flynn, any of the three later versions, starring Clark Gable, Marlon and Mel Gibson respectively as the good guy.

Eat breadfruit, the miracle fruit the HMS Bounty was sent out to collect

Drink water

Whutta-waye? (How are you?)

Fletcher Christian descendant; beaches that you’d jump ship for; coral atolls; pirate hideaways; beautiful Tahitians; seafaring language

The people of Pitcairn really are descendants of the original HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions: HMS Bounty family names-Adams, Young and Christian-are atill comman

The island’s curious array of place names confronts the visitor immediately on arrival at the Bounty Bay landing. The accurately named Hill of Difficulty is the steep trail that leads up to Adamstown, perched 120m above the sea on the Edge… Heathen idols were found and cast into the sea at Down the God, and the intriguingly named Little George Coc’nuts was a coconut grove by George Young, son of mutineer Ned Young… Right in Adamstown you find a spot with the dire name, Where Dick Fall. A little to the west, below Christian’s Cave, the cliffs must be particularly dangerous since the map lists: Where Dan Fall and the succinct Tom Off. lt’s no better on the coast, Where Warren Fall, or the east coast, Where Freddie Fall. But the south coast has the most enigmatic and worrying warning of all-Oh Dear.