Lord Howe: Paradise without the people

ONE of the first things I noticed on a short visit to Lord Howe Island was the crowds - there weren't any.

escape howe

ONE of the first things I noticed on a short visit to Lord Howe Island was the crowds - there weren't any.

I suppose it's not surprising. The island, about 700km from Brisbane and Sydney, is only 11km long and 2.8km at its widest and has a permanent population of about 350 people and beds for only 400 guests.

The biggest crowd I saw in five days on the island was about 80 people at the legendary "fish fry" at Pinetrees Lodge on a Monday night.

The title "fish fry" really doesn't do justice to this meal you start with a bowl of soup, in my case a mildly spicy capsicum-based number, followed by a selection from a tasty array of sushi and sashimi, then a piece or three of fresh local kingfish accompanied by chips and your choice of about 10 salads, followed by as many dishes from the amazingly decadent dessert buffet as your appetite and conscience allow.

I took a photograph of the dessert spread to show my dietitian what temptation had been placed in my path, and how I resisted valiantly well, almost.

It's pretty good value, too. The meal costs $60 for non-residents of Pinetrees and is included in the tariff for people staying at the lodge.

Pinetrees itself is a worthy story it has been operating as a guesthouse for more than a century and is now in the capable hands of the sixth generation of the same family, with Dani Rourke, her husband, Luke Hanson, and Rachel and Jim McFadyen in charge.

They're refreshing the decor and furnishings but the delightfully welcoming family atmosphere is still strongly in evidence.

The lodge, able to accommodate 85 people, is the largest on the island, followed by the very comfortable Somerset Apartments, which has self-contained apartments able to hold about 45 people. From there it ranges down to two or four-bed units. The luxury Howeana Apartments, for example, have a one-bedroom unit and two-bedroom unit that provide everything you'll need for a relaxed stay.

Among the smaller places but definitely at the luxury end of the scale are Capella Lodge (nine units) and Arajilla (12 one and two-bedroom units). Arajilla and Capella also have day spas open to the public I can thoroughly recommend the one-hour ayurvedic massage at Arajilla, which was the perfect remedy for my overtaxed muscles after I joined naturalist Ian Hutton on a walk to the top of Malabar Hill (208m high) to observe red-tailed tropicbirds as they glided about the clifftops.

It wasn't so much the climb that wrecked me as the little old ladies in their 60s and 70s who zipped past as I lumbered up the hill.

You tend to do a lot of walking on Lord Howe there are only five or six rental cars on the island so the main modes of transport are foot or bicycle, available from most of the lodges or Wilson's Bike Hire (6563 2045).

It had been far too long from my days of cycling to and from school so I chose to walk, thus avoiding adding to the casualty statistics generated by all those people trying to recapture long-neglected skills.

There's a network of walking tracks around the island and I made good use of these to see such sights as Malabar Hill, Old Settlement Beach, the wreckage of an RAAF Catalina flying boat that crashed in 1948 while attempting an emergency landing, killing seven of the nine crewmen, and Little Island, which is at the base of Mt Lidgbird, the second-highest point on the island at 777m, beaten only by Mt Gower's 875m. The mountains are the nesting grounds for thousands of providence petrels and are one of the few places these graceful birds breed. The birds are inquisitive and a loud calling can attract them very close to humans, as Ian Hutton demonstrated on a walk to Little Island.

Lost  in the Lagoon
A major attraction for birdwatchers on Lord Howe is the woodhen, a somewhat nondescript brownish bird about 35cm long. They were once one of the rarest birds in the world, with only about 30 left on the island, but a breeding program in the 1980s has boosted numbers to about 300. They were once found only near the summit of Mt Gower but now they're often seen around the island's settled areas, ferreting in leaf litter for their diet of worms, molluscs and invertebrates.

Another major natural attraction is the lagoon, which is enclosed by a barrier reef on the island's western side. It's the most southerly tropical coral reef in the world and the fish life and corals are among the best I've seen. Take a glass-bottomed boat trip on the lagoon with Dean Hiscox and his dad, Ken, of Lord Howe Island Environmental Tours and you can indulge in some snorkelling as well as coral viewing. Don't worry about the Galapagos sharks they show absolutely no interest in humans, even those decked out in black wetsuits and looking like very well-fed seals.

The coral viewing and snorkelling tour costs $45 for adults, with wetsuit hire an extra $5.50 or $8 depending on the season.

And unless you're a very strong swimmer, I wouldn't advise following Dean's example and swimming back to shore after snorkelling at Erscott's Hole in the lagoon Dean's an open-water long-distance swimmer and the 1.8km trip is just a training outing for him.

Dean also leads kayaking tours around the island and is one of the few guides registered to take on the Mt Gower climb, an all-day affair that provides strenuous exercise rewarded by magnificent views of Lord Howe, or so I'm told.

There's one part at the start of the hike that skirts along a ledge on Mt Lidgbird that was just too much for my intense dislike of heights.

Another of the Mt Gower guides is the versatile Jack Shick of Sea to Summit Tours, who also takes people on deep-sea fishing excursions and trips to Balls Pyramid, a 550m-high rock stack a little over 20km from Lord Howe and home to Kermadec petrels and numerous other seabirds.

One thing you'll need to prepare for is the weight limit on luggage on QantasLink flights to Lord Howe. It's only 14kg a person, so pack lightly and don't go mad on heavyweight souvenirs. I'd recommend some of the T-shirts and bookmarks at Larrup's Surfwear and the island's museum and gift shop, and the lovely bookmarks and prints of local landmarks and birds produced by Melissa Thompson (globaleye images.com/portfolio/mthompson) available at the post office.

Also, if you're not staying at one of the lodges that offers full board, then meat, fresh fish, fresh fruit and vegetables are available at the Top Shop and groceries and smallgoods at Joy's Shop and Thompson's General Store.

If you don't feel like cooking, Pinetrees and Arajilla are open for lunch and dinner and Humpty Mick's Cafe is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, while the bowls club has meals six nights a week (closed Friday), the golf club is open Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and Beachhouse on the Moon at Milky Way is open Monday and Friday nights.

After four nights of delicious food it was just as well I'd done a lot of walking or I'd have had to jettison half my luggage to meet the plane weight restrictions.

The writer travelled courtesy of the Lord Howe Island Tourism Association and QantasLink.

 Go2: LORD HOWE

Getting there
QantasLink flies to Lord Howe Island from from Sydney daily.
Visit www.qantas.com.au

Staying there
Pinetrees Lodge, ph 9262 6585, visit www.pinetrees.com.au
Capella Lodge, ph 9918 4355, visit www.lordhowe.com
Howeana Apartments, ph 9918 9350, visit www.howeana.com.au
Somerset Apartments, ph 6563 2061, visit www.lordhoweisle.com.au
Arajilla Retreat, ph 6563 2002, visit www.arajilla.com.au

Doing there
Jack Shick, Sea to Summit Tours, ph 6563 2218, visit sites.google.com/site/seatosummit/
Ian Hutton, Lord Howe Nature Tours, ph 6563 2447, visit www.lordhowe-tours.com.au
Dean Hiscox, Lord Howe Island Environmental Tours, ph/fax [phone], visit www.lord howeislandtours.com

More: Ph 1800 240 937 or visit www.lordhoweisland.info