2023-04 Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is a dot in the south Pacific ocean, 600km due east from Port Macquarie in New South Wales which in turn is roughly halfway between Sydney and Brisbane.

We set off for Lord Howe Island via Sydney from a miserable damp Melbourne and travelled via taxi (Steve of course) and two flights. MEL to SYD on a 737 and SYD to LHI on a Dash-8 turboprop with a max capacity of 36 passengers. The two hour flight in a small aircraft is necessary because the Lord Howe runway is only 886m with sea at both ends as you can see from the following photo. In addition, tourist numbers are capped at 400 at any one time and so larger aircraft would not make economic sense anyway.

The photos below shows a shot of the journey followed by our initial introduction to the dramatic beauty of this amazing place. The southern end of the island is home to the two tallest mountains, Lidgbird (777m) and Gower (875m). The mountains tower over the lagoon which is bounded by the island on the east and the most southerly coral reef in the world on the west. There are terrific opportunities for some good photos. Our hotel was at the very north of the settled flat part of the island and that afternoon/evening, we walked south down lagoon beach before returning to the hotel taking in the sunset and a fabulous meal.

On our second day we got up early to see the sunrise. We walked to Ned’s beach and instead of taking the road we took a track which gave us our first insight into the topography of this island. It is steep! Anyway, we made it to the ridge in time to take a few sunrise photos before dropping to Ned’s beach where we spent a good while watching the brown Noddys perform amazing ariel acrobatics.

After breakfast, we took our packed lunch and decided to tackle some of the walks at the northern end of the island. These walks are nowhere near as challenging as the southern mountains. Mount Gower, for example, is a 10 hour trek that is only allowed in the company of a licensed guide. The northern end of the island has mount Eliza at 147m and mount Malabar at 208m. It should be noted that there is not a single ridge between the two and one has to drop almost to sea level before climbing the other. So we hiked up to Kim’s lookout at approximately 160m and there are a lot of steps, quite a challenge. Whilst these elevations do not seem much, everything starts genuinely at sea level and the gradients are steep. The very northern end of the island, and the northern sides of both Eliza and Malabar are almost sheer cliffs plunging straight down into the ocean. Is is truly dramatic as you can hopefully see from the photos. There are also a large number of very large (10cm) orb spiders that love spinning their webs across the tracks. Once at the top, we were treated to amazing aerial displays by the red-tailed tropicbirds as they wheeled about the cliffs. The descent down Malabar ridge was challenging with a lot of exposed loose rock, in contrast to the nice steps on the way up from old settlement beach. The total hike was only 13km but the terrain made it feel a lot more than that.

On our third day, after the strenuous activity of Kim’s lookout and Malabar ridge, we decided to take it rather more gently. We headed down into town (two cafes, two shops and a post office) and then walked through a reserve full of banyan fig trees before heading out to the east of the island to a couple of view points known as the ‘valley of the shadows’ and ‘Clear Place point’. From Clear Place point we could just see Ball’s pyramid, an amazing sea stack which at 572m high is the tallest in the world. The hike was almost as long as the previous day, 12km, but with rather less elevation change.

On the fourth day, we were treated to a thunderstorm of biblical proportions that kept us indoors for much of the day. We did get to walk into town and drop in to the very few shops (about 4) on the island. We saw a few birds and we also saw a waterfall, just if you squint, on mount Gower.

Day 5 dawned, literally, with Rob at Ned’s beach with his camera to watch the sunrise.

Following breakfast we took a glass bottomed boat trip to North bay and beach. We saw many brightly coloured fish on the reef and also a green turtle but for Rob the highlight was the opportunity to climb Mount Eliza which at just 147m is not a major challenge. It is however harder than the height would suggest but the views from the top are just spectacular.

Below is a panorama from the top of Mount Eliza. It moves as you move your mouse over it.

The sheer remoteness of Lord Howe, coupled with the absence of street lighting allows for some great night sky viewing. So I had my first ever attempt at astrophotography, not something my camera is designed for. Nevertheless, a bit of gentle persuasion led to a few shots.

Day 6, we took a boat trip down to Ball’s pyramid which Rob couldn’t resist having seen it from Clear Place point. Lord Howe island is dramatic, but it is almost impossible to convey the staggeringly dramatic nature of Ball’s pyramid. It rises 572m straight out of the sea and is almost impossibly steep. It was not climbed until 1965 and then, only with great difficulty, see Climbing Balls Pyramid – The Australian Museum Blog. I’m afraid that our photos don’t do it justice, but the extremely choppy sea and queasy stomach were well worth it to see something so remarkable.

On day 7 we both wanted something very firmly on terra firma and so we decided to do one of the southern hikes to Muttonbird point and Rocky Run. yet again the scenery was stunning and there were also many birds.

We were lucky enough to get a partial day 8 because our flight was not until 14:55. We did a short hike up to the site of a post war Catalina crash which killed seven airmen and then we sat and watched birds and fish on Old Settlement beach before having lunch and flying home.