LORD HOWE ISLAND- a holiday with a difference.
I have just returned from a week on Lord Howe Island and it is a paradise for conservationists and a remarkable place to see. Only one and a half hours flight time from Brisbane or Sydney, it is worth a visit.
On flying into the island, I was immediately taken by its natural beauty and compared it immediately to the same island paradise of Norfolk Island that is a tourist’s delight. It only took one trip to the local museum (also acts as the information point) to realise the difference between the two.
You don’t go to Lord Howe for a holiday although it is very relaxing and has golf, tennis, snorkelling, fishing just as the likes of Norfolk Island does but the difference is Ian Hutton. Ian visited the island in 1980 and stayed on as a naturalist and then conservationist. In his words…..
“For me, living on Lord Howe Island is like living inside a David Attenborough documentary. Outside my front door is the Island rainforest – alive with the calls of rare endemic birds. A 30-minute walk through the palm forest and into the hills takes me to 200 metre high cliffs, and from there I can see many of the Island’s 14 seabird species, which breed in tens of thousands every year. The Island’s mountain summits are slightly less accessible, but where else on such a short trek, could one enter a mysterious “coal age” mist forest, clad with mosses, ferns and ancient flowering plants, most of which are totally restricted to that environment. Alternatively, if the mood takes me, I can motor out in my dinghy to the Island’s coral reef (in less than five minutes) and snorkel over a dazzling realm of colourful corals and fish, whose myriad variety stuns the senses.” -Ian Hutton
The island museum tells the conservation story visually or you can walk the island for days to see the results but he runs programs daily about the bird life, marine life, local flora and the changes that have been made to Lord Howe over the decades. The eradication of feral cats, goats and next year the rats that came 200 years ago. All man made problems for the local fauna and some species are now extinct because of it.
But now, through his remarkable vision and work, the bird life is the healthiest in the world with 130 permanent and migratory species of land birds and seabirds. There are only 300 inhabitants on the island and only 400 guests are allowed at one time.
His vast knowledge of conservation and its issues is worth listening to and students come from all over to learn from him. Indeed, over 20 were there from Wellington University in NZ whilst we visited and we sat with them during his enthralling lecture on birdlife. His informative documentaries he has made are also shown every day except Saturday and he is available to talk to you during or after the talks.
I had the pleasure of shaking his hand before I left and thanked him for his passion, knowledge, devotion and achievements and I know when he asks the question of why he is here on this planet, then his work is the answer and proves he is in the one percent of humanity that truly excels in leaving a legacy for future...
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