Lord Howe Island - Out of town

The services and a couple of other shops are scattered around the island.

The island is managed by a Board constituted under the Lord Howe Island Act, which is administered by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. The Chief Executive Officer, a NSW public sector appointment, gets to live here.

Hospital

Police station.

Lord Howe Island - Downtown

Thompson's Store

The "town centre" consists of a community hall, post office/bank, bar/restaurant, general store and a couple of other small shops.

Looking from Thompson's towards the Hall and the sea.

Post office.

Community Hall and the bar.

Lord Howe Island - Sunset

Tuesday

There was really only one spectacular sunset while I was there, and that was due to dark, threatening clouds. The rest were okay or a total non event.

Sunday

Monday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

For more Sky Watch from around the world, drop in to the home of Sky Watch Friday.

Lord Howe Island - Middle Beach

This is Middle Beach, another pretty beach with rockpools and good beachcombing at low tide. Very steep access and I didn't feel up to the climb this time round. There are some amazing banyan trees nearby which I will show you later. One thing I did notice this time was the amount of erosion, some of the beaches are much narrower than I remember, particularly Lagoon Beach which now has steep drop offs down to the sand where the bank has washed away. The drop is right at the edge of Pinetrees Boathouse which itself will eventually be washed away. There used to be a swathe of grass between the boathouse area and the sand.

Lord Howe Island - Ned's Beach

This is Ned's, my favourite of all the island beaches - stunning location, rock shelves and pools, great snorkelling with coral and bright fish and fish in the shallows that can be hand fed. Something for everyone. Shame its at the top of a great big hill. It was also the only really sunny day of the whole week.

Lord Howe Island - Blinky Beach

Blinky is one of the most beautiful beaches on the island (although not my favourite) and the surf beach. Unfortunately it rained, hence the spots everywhere. The tape is to keep people away from the nesting terns, which were so prolific you couldn't avoid them and were dive bombing me as I tried to shoot. Will show you the birds next week.

Lord Howe Island - Getting there and back

This is the Dash 8, the only plane that can make it in to Lord Howe's tiny airstrip, which runs the width of the island. You can see from yesterday that its not very wide. The plane has strict weight restrictions, in luggage and people (they don't fill all seats and seating is done to balance the plane), as it needs to carry enough fuel on the outwards trip to return to the mailand if it can't land - which is not unusual. Also, if the plane is heavy or the weather bad, luggage gets left on the mainland to follow later.

A word of caution - if you do visit Lord Howe, take travel insurance. One day during my stay no planes came to the island. The weather there wasn't all that bad but they couldn't take off due to bad weather on the mainland. Anyone due to leave had to stay an extra night and those coming in lost a day of their holiday. 

Nothing flying, except the birds.