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.