Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 8

Day 8 - 22/11/2015 - Departure Day :-(

We had to be out of the house and ready to leave by 9am.  Unfortunately, the weather hadn’t blown up so we did actually have to leave. We were secretly hoping that the weather would turn bad so that the flight was cancelled and would have to stay another couple of days.  The caretakers dropped us at the airport at about 9:15am.  There were so many people around as there was a flight that didn’t make it off the island in time the day before, so there were those people also trying to get on their flight, and a flight that was cancelled the day before from the mainland was also arriving.  There were people and planes going everywhere.  3 planes took off in the space of about 30minutes!

The last plane after the morning rush!

Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 7

Day 7 - 21/11/2015 - Last full day on the Island :-(

With it being our last full day on the island we decided to do, you guessed it, a bit more snorkelling! This time we rode the bikes to Ned’s Beach.  We didn’t quite manage to time it with high tide but the tide was coming in which gave a good depth to swim in.  Unfortunately I also didn’t hire a GoPro for this snorkel, so no underwater photos, (seriously starting to think about investing in one though!).  The coral was again fantastic.  And best of all you could just walk in off the beach!  There were also plenty of fish as there is a feeding station at this beach and they are use to getting fed.

Neds Beach

Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 6

Day 6 - 20/11/2015 - No Organised Activities Day!

Finally a day to relax and take it easy.  The only planned activity for the day was to take some boxes to the post office before  the parcel cut off time at lunch time.  Due to the luggage weight restrictions when flying in, we had posted 3 boxes a couple of weeks before with some of the heavier items in, e.g. toiletries, reef walking shoes, bush walking poles etc etc.

Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 5

Day 5 - 19/11/2015 - North Bay Snorkelling

Well no rest for the wicked.  It was an early start again because we were booked on a North Bay Turtle and Nature tour and we had to be at the booking shed at 9am to get organised for a 9:15am departure.  I was again hiring the GoPro and we also opted for the wetsuits.  These wetsuits weren’t however the full length ones so it was going to be interesting to see if there was any noticeable temperature difference between the two wetsuit lengths.

Another beautiful start to the day!

Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 4

Day 4 - 18/11/2015 - Mount Gower Climb

It was an early start for me this morning as I was doing the Mount Gower climb and was meant to be catching the pickup bus at 7am for a 7:30am start of the walk. I was going by the clock in the Treehouse and I hadn’t realised that it was about 15min slow! I only realised when it was showing 6:50am and I happened to check another clock, so this made me already 5min late for my pick up. Luckily I was the first person to get picked up but I still had to sprint about 200m to meet the bus at the pickup point! It was already there waiting for me. So not a great start to the day. The legs were going to get punished enough without having to do a 200m uphill warmup sprint before the real work even started.

We picked up the other 12 people that were doing the walk and arrived at the southern most end of the island where the walk starts from at about 7:40am. After meeting the walk guide, Dean Hiscox, picking up our helmets and getting the formalities out of the way, we started walking at about 8am. Due to the heritage listing and nature of the island, you are not allowed to climb Mt Gower without a guide.

Looking North over the Lagoon from the start of the walk

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Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 3

Day 3 - 17/11/2015 - Snorkelling and Photos afternoon

It was an early 6:30am start as we were off for our first snorkelling tour.  After breakfast and getting ready we arrived at the LHI Environmental Tours shed at about 8:30 for a 9am start.  I had also organised to hire a GoPro camera from the dive shop, so I had to pick that up as well.  I have never used a GoPro before so it was going to be interesting to see what sort of footage I could get from it.

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

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Lord Howe Island Trip - Day 1

Day 1 - 15/11/2015 - Bundaberg to Lord Howe Island (LHI)

This isn’t going to be one of our regular camping trip posts, mainly because there is no camping on Lord Howe Island! Lord Howe Island is a world heritage listed island so therefor everything is protected and resident and visitor numbers are capped. There are about 300 permanent residents of the island, and visitor numbers are caped at about 400 at any one time on the island.

We arrived at the Bundaberg airport at 8:30am. As we were checking in they warned us that there was a chance that the flight from Brisbane to Lord Howe Island could be cancelled due to bad weather. After a quick call to the travel agent it was recommended that we still head to Brisbane because the flight hadn’t actually been cancelled at that stage.

On arrival at Brisbane we found out that our connecting flight to LHI had been delayed an hour as they were still assessing the weather conditions. That was a good sign, at least it wasn’t cancelled yet. The hour rolled around and it was delayed for another hour. Again, still happy that the flight hadn’t been cancelled.

We finally ended up boarding for the flight at 1:30pm. The flight time to LHI was about 1hr 45m, (about 600km east of Port Macquarie). We landed at about 4pm LHI time. LHI is part of NSW so day light saving time applies. The runway is small and limited by the ocean on both sides. We had heard that the landing and take offs could be a bit of a white knuckle experience due to the weather conditions and short runway. The landing was a bit bumpy due to the weather, but not too bad.

Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 6

Day 6 - 6/4/2015 - Biloela to Home

It was a bit of a slow morning again, because we didn't really want to face up the fact that the holiday was over.  We just wanted to keep driving and exploring!  We knew we didn’t have a huge distance to travel and it was a pretty quick pack up. We were on the road by 9am.

You could easily tell that it was Easter Monday.  The traffic on the road was steadily increasing as we approached and joined the Bruce Highway.  Even on the road from Miriam Vale to Bundaberg there was a constant stream of traffic, most likely all leaving 1770 and Agnes Water.

We arrived home early afternoon which was handy as it allowed us to do a majority of the unpack and clean up to get ready for work the next day :-(

Here are some of the basic trip stats:

Total Km = 1580

Total Diesel = 283.03L
L/100km = 17.91

I did fill up an extra 20L jerry can at Springsure.  It was mainly for a backup just incase the track did get a bit sloppy and I was burning more diesel than anticipated.  With having a long range tank fitted I didn't really need too but I tipped the jerry can into the Pajero at camp just to use it up.

Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 5

Day 5 - 5/4/2015 - Salvator Rosa to Biloela

We woke to an absolute stunning morning.  The clouds had cleared over night and it was going to be another beautiful day.  It was a pity we had to pack up and leave :-(

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Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 4

Day 4 - 4/4/2015 - Salvator Rosa

Again we woke to a beautiful morning, but as the day progressed so did the build up of the clouds.  Light cloud at first but as the day went on the cloud got lower, heavier and darker.  

The day was spent doing pretty much the same as the day before, the only difference being I was having to chase the sun with the solar panels more due to the cloud.  It was a really bad solar day and if we had had two of these days in a row, we would have been getting to near critical levels with the batteries.

There wasn’t any actual rain but it felt like it could start at any minute.  One group of campers packed up and headed off after lunch.  I suspect not wanting to risk getting stuck if it did rain and the access track becoming impassable.  We were due to leave the following day so we were also keeping a close eye on the weather.  Due to the remoteness we couldn’t even receive any AM radio stations to try and listen to a weather report.  We had a chat with some of the other campers and they were also keeping an eye on the weather but were staying put for the time being.  As they were more “local” than us, (from Augathella and Sapphire), we thought that we would just go with the local knowledge.  If they looked like they were going to make a move, we probably would have as well.  We also had plenty of water and food and we knew we could send a message out via the satellite phone if we did have to stay for a few extra days to wait for the track to dry out.

That afternoon and night we did get a few sprinkles of rain but not as much as on the first night.

Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 3

Day 3 - 3/4/2015 - Salvator Rosa

After a few more drops of rain during the night, we woke up to a perfect day.  We started off the day by having an explore around the camp grounds.

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Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 2

Day 2 - 2/4/2015 - Springsure to Salvator Rosa

We didn’t have any rain over night, there wasn’t any thing showing up on the rain radar and the prediction was for only a slight chance of a small amount of rain.  After talking to the Showgrounds caretaker the previous night, there hadn’t been any significant rain in the area for a few days so it was all systems go to head into Salvator Rosa.

Springsure sunrise

Salvator Rosa Trip - Day 1

Day 1 - 1/4/2015 - Bargara to Springsure

Well, it was time to get back on the road again - finally!  It had felt like ages since we have had a chance to do a bit of a road trip and explore some new places.  On our way home from Charleville on our last trip, we came across the Dawson Development road from Tambo to Springsure and were captivated by the ranges in the Salvator Rosa section of the Carnarvon National Park.   Ever since then we had been looking for an opportunity to travel out that way again.  The Easter break gave us that opportunity.

It was going to be a day and a half drive to get to Salvator Rosa, so today was all about just getting to Springsure so we could make an early start for getting into Salvator Rosa the following day.

It was certainly looking a lot greener than the last time we came through

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