Around the island
Trip Start
Jul 03, 2007
1
7
8
Trip End
Jul 10, 2007
Lord Howe Island,
Australia
Monday, July 9, 2007
M:
Had a shocking night - just coughed and coughed and coughed - and not even proper coughing that you feel you're doing because of some ghastliness in your lungs - this was just a tiny tickle and "if I just have one small cough, that'll clear it!" and then just another tiny tickle... What made it worse was that I knew I could fix the tiny tickle if I blew my nose but that involved leaning up on my cut elbow and was just painful enough to wake me thoroughly. Sigh. Eventually I had to sit up for the time it took me to suck a nasty cough lozenge, playing solitaire as the least disturbing for Gray who had been woken by my antics.
G:
Mandi coughed all night, so didn't get too much sleep, and neither did the rest of us, though we had to pretend to be asleep so she wouldn't get cross
01 a Woodhen at last!
. It rained on and off most of the night, but when we got up, the weather looked good. M:
Anyway, we woke to a lovely morning and were just having a cup of coffee to get ourselves going when we heard an odd and very loud birdcall from just under our deck. "Probably a bloody Woodhen at last!" I sighed - we've been searching all over for the damn things - and sure enough, that's what it was!! It was an unusual call, obviously designed to be very carrying, and a dear little unassuming bird but I'm glad I hadn't swum the Sahara or something to see it! It pottered about and stuck its beak into things as laid down in the Field Guide "Rules for Woodhens" but that was that. Anyway, at least that's one Lord Howe Island creature I can cross off my life list.
G:
As we were sitting we heard this strange bird cry that ended with a hiccup like the Capercailey out of Attenborough. This bird too, must be using infrasound. As expected, it was a small russet bird with a big beak - the wood hen. Mandi spent some time trying to get good pictures of it, and I recorded its cry on my palm, for later analysis, though I doubt that the thing has the bandwidth.
M:
Then we went down to Ned's with all the snorkelling pakkerasie - just forgot the poor old kingfishes' bread!
02 Squall over Ned's beach
! And after eating their brother last night too - talk about adding insult to injury!I had miscalculated the low tide and was expecting to be too late but as it happened we were there almost spot on low tide in perfect still conditions - although not so still that I could put my flippers on in the shallows with any degree of dignity! I had said something on the way down that maybe we shouldn't do it a second time as perhaps it would be disappointing after the wonderful first experience but if anything it was better. One didn't feel obliged to thrash about and see everything but instead was content to just float where the waves took one and watch all the busy fish going about their business. They are actually much more interesting to watch than birds because they are quite unafraid of people. Some are a little curious and look at you beadily, and today one species was feeling its oats and kept trying to shoo us away, but everyone else just got on with their regular Monday morning chores - which seem to mostly consist of just floating around looking at one another. Nice life.
G:
After coffee we collected the snorkel gear and headed down to Ned's beach. We were there at exactly the right time, again. So, once we had managed to pull on the wetsuits, and flop about in the waves getting our flippers on, we were out in the coral again
03 Feeding the fish
. Possibly because we were more relaxed, we seemed to see so much more today. Well, Mandi did, anyway, I mostly saw a blur, but there were clown fish frolicking in the anemones, and a pretty blue lipped clam that Mandi pointed out. It was actually rather frustrating because you know this world is out there, and yet it cannot be reached. I swam around for an hour, then got out because I was too cold and also needed to pee. Watched Mandi to make sure she wasn't eaten by the Kraken, until she had had enough. Took some photos of her as proof for the kids as she came out, though I was sorry that I didn't get any of her floundering on her back trying to get her flippers off.M:
Some highlights: a fancy-schmantzy clam with decorative spots on its blue lips, that I finally managed to show Gray; (I keep seeing them when he's some distance away and by the time I've yelled and choked on the seawater I swallowed while yelling and yelled again and he's swum over, I've drifted off and can't find the bloody thing again!) some little stripy fish, camouflaged as seaweed, hoovering sand in their mouths and shooting it out of their gills (not such a nice life after all!) a teeny tiny vivid white-black-fluoro-green fish that would have been the smartest thing in one of the girls' tanks if it was there and not the smallest creature in a vast sea of fantastic things; and best of all, a rock covered entirely with sea anemones and the very doggy little black and white endemic clown fish looking as if they were actually anting on the anemones - lying there as if they were enjoying being tickled.
Gray came out before I did because he got cold. Not long afterwards, the sun came out and made fantastic patterns on the sandy bottom and made all the corals' colours even richer and more intense but by then I was starting to get cold too, and desperate to pee, so I had to drag myself out, kicking and screaming shamefully
04 Blue fish coming for breakfast
. It's an odd thing - we've both noticed that after an hour or so in the salt water, we are desperate to pee, and produce gallons - really! - and then are desperately thirsty afterwards. I suppose it may be something to do with the salt balance.G:
When we had watched our fill of everyone feeding the Kingfish, and some amazing blue variety that we didn't see before, we wandered back to our cottage where we arrived just before the rain.
M:
We sat in the sun watching the kingfish being fed (and being told they adore lettuce, which seems odd) and then went back for a shower - bliss! By now it was drizzling - so much for the early sunshine! We found a note saying there was a round-the-island tour on at 1pm so we scrapped the walking plans and instead cooked and ate our sausages and onions and then pottered down to the jetty in the rain, speculating whether the change in weather since the note was left would cause the tour to be cancelled again.
On our way through to the Jetty, we stopped at Thompson's (as one must) and bought more tissues and elastoplasts and booked a bus tour for tomorrow which is probably a good way of spending our last morning as we won't want to be walking - at least not far - in case we aren't back in time for the plane
05 The boat through wet glass
.G:
There was a note on our floor to say that the Greenback was going round the island and to meet at the jetty at 12:50. We had curry sausages and fried onion for lunch before walking down to the village in the gentle rain. The Greenback was just back at the jetty after a fishing trip, and the skipper, Dave needed to go out again, so the trip was postponed until 1:30. This was a pain as we didn't want to eat, so felt bad hanging about at Humpty Mick's, bet there wasn't anywhere else out of the rain except the entrance to the post office. This proved to be quite entertaining as ten pallet sized Australia Post boxes arrived and were opened. A human chain was organized to convey the contents into the store room at the side of the post office.
M:
The big vessel was still at the Jetty, now starting to unload the big diesel containers, and so was the "Greenback" with a very nice bloke called Dave aboard. He said the wind had picked up but he could still do some of the tour including the waterfalls on the mountains, which sounded brilliant, but that we'd be starting at 1:30. So we came back to "town" and are sitting out of the rain on the stoep of the Post Office watching ten huge boxes of parcels being unloaded by a "chain" of all the Post Office and ferry people
06 Back of the island
. It's quite sweet as they're commenting on everyone's parcels: "more wine for Kerryn!" or "that'll be George's mum's fruitcake!" or "more food for that stupid dog of Fred's - I thought it had finally died the other night but then it woke up and started barking again!"Later: at 1:20 we gave up watching the parcels and went back down to the Jetty where things were almost bustling - certainly there were two forklifts busy and a huge load of timber dropped all over the nice grassy park area and lots of bags and boxes and barrels all standing about waiting to be on- or off-loaded. Huddled in the little shed area were five morose people who were all waiting to get on the "Greenback" for the round-the-island tour. Glynis, Dave's wife (who had left the note for us) came and explained what Dave had already told us, that it was too rough to go right around the island but he'd go as far as he could and charge pro-rata. But he was still cleaning the boat after a fishing trip and would be a few more minutes. If you can believe it, some of the people asked if they could go and get something to eat! Luckily the answer was no, sorry, Dave wants to leave before the conditions deteriorate.
G:
By the time it was time to wander back to the jetty, it had almost stopped raining.
07 Ned's beach from the sea
There was a full complement of seven waiting to go out on Greenback, and we were told that because it was pretty choppy, that we would stick to this side, and motor down the lagoon and then round the base of Mt Gower to see the waterfalls before returning. Mandi and I rode in the bows, and how exhilarating that was as we raced across the bay ploughing through the waves. Everyone else stayed in the cabin except for a nerdy man from CSIRO with his SLR - until it got spray on the lens, then he went inside as well.M:
So off we went. Dave offered us the cabin "to put down anything you want to keep dry" (it was still spitting with rain at that point but didn't rain again) and told us we could go anywhere outside so Gray and I dumped our bags and pushed greedily to the "Jack I'm flying!" position in front but a group of two well-coiffed women and a man lurked inside the whole time, teetering out to snap off a pic or two only when the boat was idling in calm waters and then scampering back. The other two, both men and both serious photographers (although neither would wax lyrical about his dSLR - it's an odd thing that old film SLR users would go on and on and on about "Minolta is the only manufacturer for this or that reason" or "Canon is of course what the professionals use" or whatever, and dSLR people say "yeah, I'm happy with it." These people didn't even talk megapixels to me - not that one wants that, as one can get it from the technical specs - but what I really want is someone who will say "the Aperture mode doesn't work as it should but at least it fires half a second after you get the lens cap off") mostly lurked inside too, or huddled at the back
08 Admiralty Islets
. One would occasionally venture for'ard (such nautical terminology again!) and cling to the railing or sit on the benchy effort where he would have had the railing going through the middle of every shot - and of course would have conniptions every time a bit of spray came near his fancy camera. So in reality, Gray and I had the best part of the boat to ourselves. It was excellent. Parts were quite rough but as long as you kept one hand on some sort of hand-hold and your eyes on the waves so you could predict whether you were going to go up or down next, it was nothing at all to worry about. And at last we've both finally had some decent use out of our expensive Gore-Tex jackets which we bought for the freezing steppes of Central Asia (ie Turkey) and then dragged around for a month while we wore T-shirts. Gray was wearing just a T-shirt and shorts, and his jacket only comes to his waist and is just a single layer of Gore-Tex so I'm sure he must have been cold although he claims not; I had long pants and a light jumper and my lined and thigh-length jacket and still wished I had a beanie and gloves at times! But not seriously. I was impressed by what a good job my jacket did at keeping me warm and dry.G:
The base of Mt Gower is incredible, with the waterfalls cascading the full 800m down the near-vertical face and masses of frigate birds and other gulls just flying about for the hell of it
10 Spray!
. The sea is a completely different colour, a dark lilac, almost violet. It was here that I ran out of space on my card, so during a quiet time had to delete all Jennies fashion photos. This isn't a problem as Mandi had downloaded them already.M:
We went anti-clockwise (that's probably also got some special nautical term like widdershins) and when we got around the mountains to the Eastern side it was so (relatively) calm that Dave said we'd go the whole way around after all although the last bit past Mt Eliza would be very rough. It was just amazing - those mountains are HUGE and because of the rain, covered with a veil of waterfalls - some appearing to fall 300m straight down into the sea. There are huge "bites" out of the sides of the mountains where bits were blown out by the volcano or just got too steep and simply slumped away. You can see all the intricate network of volcanic pipes and dykes now frozen into the rock. And above it all, thousands of seabirds playing in the wind - what it must be like when all the summer residents are here, I can't imagine because at present there are only the permanent residents like the Providence Petrel and the Masked Booby.
The light, especially around the dramatic Eastern side, was just remarkable - magnificent skies and shafts of light on the mountain. Far across the sea, Balls Pyramid was lit up truly like a fairy castle - if someone had put it in "Lord of the Rings'', you'd have thought it was just too over-the-top.
G:
The light was perfect, and we could see Balls Pyramid glowing in the distance as we rounded the end of the island. From this perspective it was also possible to see that Mt Gower is a sliver not a cylinder, almost the same shape as Mt Lydgbird
11 Lord Howe from the sea
. They were both spectacular from this perspective. We then stopped at Boat Harbour, and went past Mutton Bird Point. Dave asked us to come to the back as it was going to get rough as we motored out to the Admiralty Islets, to see the massive hole, before returning to run along the cliffs below Malabar and Kim's Lookout where lava intrusions through layers of ash were clearly visible. Mandi was having lots of fun trying to get covered with spray, but I stayed comfortable and dry on a large fish-box in the middle. Slowed at the old Gulch and saw someone fishing on the way to the 'pilchard' pools. All too soon we were back around the point and entering the lagoon. It had been a brilliant trip!M:
We also went around the Admiralty Islets and saw the "key hole" one can just see from Ned's, and came eventually triumphantly back to the Jetty. It was a great afternoon.
Yesterday I could easily say that the highlight of the trip was snorkelling at Ned's but today even though the snorkelling was even better, I'd be hard pressed to say which was better of that or this trip.
Afterwards for hot chocolate and ice cream at Humpty Mick's and then we wended our way up the hill and home. We stopped by Lorhiti next door, thinking to book dinner in their Chinese restaurant
12 View from our stoep
. We were greeted by the same large Asian man who runs the Coral Café at the Museum (everyone seems to do at least three or four different things here) who told us they are closed tonight. Such a pity. However we still have some small steaks (although Gray's sniffy about them as they come from Casino) and some large potatoes and some mushrooms and broccoli and it would be much less wasteful to stay home and cook.I spoke to Emma about her possibly needing the cottage for an early clean - the info pamphlet warns one this may be possible if the next people are arriving on an early flight. Luckily she doesn't and we have a very good arrangement - if she finds us here, frantically packing, at 1:20, she will take us plus luggage down to the Airstrip; if she finds the luggage only, she'll take it and meet us at Humpty Mick's. This way we can do our tour from 9:20 until noon, and if the weather is good snorkel first and pack afterwards; if not, we can pack before and lunch afterwards.
G:
Stopped for hot chocolate at Humpty Mick's before walking home and spent the evening there. I made steak and baked potato for supper before reading our books and then going to bed. Mandi started to cough.
