Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 2

Day 2 - 16/11/2015 - Settling in and getting organised

After the big travel day yesterday we had a bit of a sleep in.  Our body clocks were still not use to the daylight saving time.  With LHI also being 600km or so east of the mainland, that also added to the body clock confusion as it felt like it was getting lighter a lot earlier than on the main land, which it would do being more east.

Mt Lidgebird and Mt Gower

Not a bad morning view

Once we were moving for the morning we walked towards the main town centre.  This is where most of the shops and water sports booking sheds were located.  We booked a couple snorkelling tours, one on the southern end of the reef and the other on the northern end of the reef.  I also confirmed and paid for my Mount Gower hike/mountain climb.

Palm tree lined Lagoon Road

Museum located on the Cnr of Middle and Lagoon Roads

While waiting at one of the booking sheds a plane was coming in to land.  The weather was a lot better today for it.

Landing on LHI

The location also had a great view of the southern end of the Lagoon and Mount Lidgebird and Mount Gower (you are going to get sick of seeing photos of these by the end :-) )

Mt Lidgebird and Mt Gower

From there it was on to check out the post office, the island co-op shop and Thompsons Store to work out the availability of supplies.  The Treehouse where we were staying was self catering so we were working out which shop was the best to buy what we needed.

The main street

We also hired a couple of bikes which was going to be our main mode of transport for the week.

By the time we had done the rounds it was early afternoon so we headed home for lunch and a bit of a rest.  It was tiring work walking and riding everywhere!

After 3pm we rode up to the Top Shop for some fruit and veg.  There are only 4 shops on the island, Joys Shop, Thompsons Store, the Top Shop and the island co-op shop and they all specialise in slightly different things.  The Top Shop is more for fruit, veg and fresh meat, Joys Shop (the closest to our accomodation), was basically a small supermarket, Thompsons Store had more take away food and home and hardwares and the co-op shop was a community run non-profit shop that had more of the locally made produce i.e. jams, dips, cheeses, dry goods and specialises in purchasing in bulk to reduce packaging and waste. 

From there we thought we would head off to have a look at some of the beaches that we quickly drove past on the previous day.  It is called the Top Shop for a reason.  It is at the top of a hill on the island.  After checking out the shop it was a nice coasting ride down to Neds Beach to check out what it was like for swimming and snorkelling.

Neds Beach

The bikes in the shed at Neds Beach

From Neds Beach it was a little bit of an up hill exit from the cove before coasting most of the way to Old Settlement Beach.  On the way to Old Settlement beach we stopped off at the Signal Point lookout.  It has one of the best views of the Lagoon, Mt Gower and Mt Lidgebird.  The Island Trader barge was still at the jetty loading up getting ready to leave.  The Island Trader is the way that everything gets to the island.  It only arrives every two weeks and takes about 36hrs from Port Macquarie to reach the island.

Looking out over the Lagoon

Old Settlement Beach

From Old Settlement Beach we rode along Lagoon Road to the end of the island.  On the way past the airstrip the 5pm flight was landing but because we were pushing into the wind we didn’t hear the plane approaching until it was pretty much touching down right beside us!  Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get the camera out to catch how close it was to us or the lagoon on landing.

Just south of the airport and landing strip was the golf course.  The greens looked very well maintained and had a great view north over the lagoon.  There were also a number of other lookouts with great views along this section of the road

Plane getting ready for take off.

The end of Lagoon road is also the start of the Mt Gower walking track.  So it was good to get a bit more perspective of what I was in for in a couple of days time.  By now it was 6:00pm but despite it still being light enough to do more exploring we started to head home so that we could start getting more in sync with the time.

Mt Lidgebird is the closer one, Mt Gower is the one in the background