The rock in the South Pacific has the NSW postcode of 2899 but technically belongs to the Australian Capital Territory federal seat of Bean.

But as the island comes out of the trauma of COVID, there's trouble in paradise: the shortage of some foods for the revitalised tourist economy.

A year ago, the island closed its borders to everybody who might bring the new barely-understood coronavirus in.

With 1600 kilometres of ocean between it and the nearest treatment for COVID-19, the risk was just too great - even though 90 per cent of the economy depended on incomers.

Now the tourists are back by the plane-load but the remote location means some foods are scarce or non-existent.

"What we are seeing is a shortage of flour, cooking oil, sugar and rice - things which residents do need," the administrator of the island, Eric Hutchinson, said.

"You might struggle to get a muffin at the local cafe because of the shortage of flour." Coconut is in short supply. The supermarket shelves are bare.

But there isn't a general shortage because of locally produced food.

"The fishing is bountiful. There's a large cattle herd so there's no shortage of beef. There are vegetables," the administrator on behalf of the Commonwealth government said.

But there is discontent on the tropical island which was a brutal outpost for banished British prisoners in early colonial times.

"COVID was a blessing to us because we were not getting tourists," Martin Cross who owns Norfolk Stock Feeds said. "Now we've got six planes a week but we've got no supplies."

There are three flights a week from Brisbane and three from Sydney so the population of about 2000 rises by not far from double.

To ease the "no muffin" crisis, some supplies have been flown in but Mr Cross's product - cattle feed - is too bulky to fly in economically. The shipping from Australia via New Zealand has been fitful. The last vessel arrived in December.

The Norfolk Island Chamber of Commerce called it "a terrible situation".

"Does the Australian government and administrator care?" it asked.

"No," it answered its own question.

"Is the Australian government and administrator doing anything about this?"

"No."

But the administrator denies he is doing nothing.

"It's the biggest challenge that we have," he said.

"A number of contingencies are being looked at."

The longer-term problem is that one of the two cargo ships which served Norfolk Island was scrapped so one delivery a month became one delivery every two months or more. The port doesn't have the capacity and the wharf to deal with containers.

Mr Hutchinson said that there was a plan to build a temporary landing stage so lorries could drive off ships.

"That will change the landscape," he said.

Mr Hutchinson is a former MP from Tasmania so he has a politician's assertion of optimism. In the short term, he thought there would be challenges in his new, warmer island domain but also "opportunities".

He hopes a ship should sale this week and arrive on Friday, with a further two or three days to unload, all depending on the weather.

Muffins may be on the way.

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