Lord Howe Island - New South Wales - Islands of Australia

Lord Howe Island was once a volcanic island, but it has now settled down to a beautiful haven, full of wildlife and amazing views. It is one of the rare places in the world that is still virtually unspoiled, with less than four hundred permanent residents and a strict limit on the number of tourists allowed to visit each year.

This island is only about eleven kilometers long, and two kilometers at its widest, holding a long sub-tropical beach in the inner curve of the island’s crescent. At the southern end of the island stand the two the highest points of land, Mt. Gower and Mt. Lidgbird.

In 1982, Lord Howe Island was named a World Heritage site by the United Nations in order to help preserve its natural beauty and diversity – one of only 162 natural sites so protected. About 75 percent of the land area is protected parkland. Five hundred species of fish and ninety species of coral live in the world’s southernmost coral reef, over 150 species of birds live or nest there, and the island itself is home to at least 150 native species of flowering plants, plus more than fifty ferns, plus dozens of mammals and hundreds of insect species, many still un catalogued.

The island was uninhabited before its discovery by British explorers led by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, for whom Mt. Lidgbird and the sea pinnacle Ball’s Pyramid are named. Ball named the island after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe; several species, including the island’s famous kentia palm (genus Howea) have been named after the admiral.

Lord Howe Island was visited by passing government ships and whalers, but no permanent settlement was made there until 1834, when settlers from New Zealand built a supply station for passing ships. A small town supported by trade in palm fiber and seeds began to thrive, and organized the Lord Howe Island Board of Control in 1913. The number of visitors enchanted with the island’s untamed beauty continued to increase, and residents eventually began building guest houses for tourists who arrived by steamship. After disappearing from public consciousness and ship itineraries during World War II, the island rebounded in the late 1940s. Flying Boat and Sandringham service landed air passengers in the lagoon, until an airstrip was built in 1974. Tourism and ecological interest continue to be the main industry on the island.