Paradise!

A little tired of organising longer with lots of moving and sight seeing adventures, this summer we opted for a short in one place holiday with warm weather and a beach (or two!) So in October we committed to travelling to Lord Howe Island for a weeks holiday.

As flights from Canberra to Sydney return were exorbitant we opted to drive to Sydney airport and park the car in short term parking for the week. This was about a quarter of the cost of the proposed flights. We left Canberra at 7am, allowing plenty of time for any unexpected delays. Apart from the rain, there were none thankfully. Ella even got an hour or so of driving practice in too!

Rolling into the car park was easy. No spare spaces until the 6th floor. From there it was a short 10min walk to the check in desk. There was plenty of time for coffee and morning snacks followed by a bite of lunch before boarding the bus which drove us out on the tarmac to our little 36 seater plane!

Lord Howe is a crescent shaped island, a volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea. It is about 780km north east of Sydney, a 2 hour flight. The island is fairly small - only 10km long and not very wide. There are coral reefs on the east and west sides of the island and steep peaks on both the north and south ends. Mt Gower is the tallest peak rising 875m at the south end.

The airstrip is tiny and spans the width of the island making landing and takeoff interesting. The view though on the way in was spectacular! Katy and I loved the beautiful turquoise colours of the coral reef of the main lagoon on the approach. Ella and Andy were on the other side of the plane so they got great views of the towering peaks of Mt Gower and Mt Lidgbird.

As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were hit by the heat and humidity. We knew where we would be heading after we got settled - straight to the beach for a swim!

Our host Janine picked us up. Being a descendant of one of the two families that first settled on the island, she knew lots about the island and its history. On the way to our accomodation she gave us a little tour to help orientate us.

The accomodation at Blue Lagoon was basic. We had not much choice in availability given our late booking and so we found ourselves in a 1 bedroom apartment in which the bedroom had the two single beds while the double bed was in the main living space! It suited us just fine.

We quickly unpacked, visited the little supermarket to purchase some essentials. Despite being warned about the cost of food we were really surprised when our chips, cheese, drinks and breakfast amounted to over $100!! We didn't linger over that too long as we were keen to cool off and what could we do anyway...starve??

The main lagoon what can I say... just spectacular! However with a dinner booking for 6.30pm, we weren't able to explore for too long. Tomorrow we would certainly be taking our snorkels down to discover the reef.

Dinner was at the Anchorage - a place that served as a bakery, coffee shop and restaurant! Given that there was no mobile network, while waiting for dinner, Ella spied a phone box. Encouraging her to try using it, she was stoked to figure out that she could call Ryan (her boyfriend) for free!! Over dinner we regaled the girls of stories about phone boxes and our travels - definitely showing our age and how much the world has changed!!

Post dinner, we returned for a short walk along the beach to soak up the wonderful scenery.