Final Day on Lord Howe Island
Greetings from Lord Howe Island!
Today was our last full day here, so we wanted to get the kids out on a hike. We had been told that the route up to a place called Kims Lookout was relatively easy, and that there were no leeches at the top. The chef at the lodge made sandwiches for us, so we packed them in a day pack, and rode our bicycles to the trail.
Tallulah insisted on hiking in her new lime-green bikini, so we put on a lot of sun screen and started walking. The trail was only about 2.5 kilometers each way, but it climbed over 200 meters in the first kilometer. I worked that out to a 20% grade, which felt pretty steep. In a fit of “I can do it BY MYSELF! Tallulah charged up the trail, leading the way for nearly the first 30 minutes. Then she went up on my shoulders for most of the rest of the way.
I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF!
As expected, based on many previous hikes, Zola had to go through a bit of an emotional warm-up period before getting into the spirit of the walk. This involves 20-30 minutes of lagging behind the rest of us, and complaining vociferously. He must be learning at least a little bit in our home-schooling sessions, because his complaining style has become more articulate, and his vocabulary has improved. Today’s shouted refrain was, “You don’t care if my exhaustion walks me into an early grave.”
AFTER THE EMOTIONAL WARM-UP PERIOD
As always, at some point Zola snaps out of complaining mode, and becomes an enthusiastic hiker and good company on the trail. Usually this happens when we see an interesting animal. On this hike, the trigger was a series of huge Golden Orb spider webs built across the trail, at a height of about two meters. Unfortunately, the height of the spider webs meant that Tallulah got a few in the face, and had a spider crawling on her for about 30 seconds. They aren’t poisonous, but she ducked way down and insisted that I run when we came to more webs.
The hike was more difficult than we had expected, but eventually, we got to Kims Lookout, and ate our lunch. A group of red-tailed sea gulls were surfing on the strong winds. We looked down a sheer cliff at the royal blue ocean about 250 meters below us. Again, India shouted “Kim Fennell!!!” in her friend’s honor, we took a picture, and headed back down the mountain.
Later in the afternoon, Zola and I went to the island’s lawn bowling club. We had seen a sign on their football field reading “Touch Footy at 4 pm Wednesday - All Welcome,” and we wanted to play. Unfortunately, the only other people who showed up were kids about Zola’s age, and neither of them had a football. There was a big lawn bowling tournament in progress, which Zola sat and watched with great interest for a while. He remarked that it was the only sport he had ever seen people smoke while they played. Then it started to pour with rain, so play was suspended, and Zola and I laughed as we pedaled back to Arajilla.
THE TURTLE IS ON THE LEFT
After the rain stopped, we all went down to the beach before dinner. Tallulah and I went out about 200 meters into the very still bay and shallow bay. As we swam back, with her on my back, she shouted “Turtle!” A greenback sea turtle, nearly as big as Tallulah herself, swam right up to us. When we continued toward shore, the turtle followed with curiosity, occasionally poking its little reptilian head out of the water to breathe. Both kids thought this was cool. As the turtle swam with us, a huge rainbow appeared over the mountains to the north of the beach.
Lord Howe Island has been great. It is definitely quirky, but well worth the visit. All of us have really enjoyed the hiking and the snorkeling and riding around on the lodge’s bikes. This is a special and unspoilt place.
We fly back to Sydney early tomorrow afternoon.