Change In Plans

THE LITTLEST HIKER - YESTERDAY IN THE SUNSHINE

Greetings from Lord Howe Island.  It is a(nother) rainy day, and we are waiting for our early-afternoon flight back to Sydney.  The kids are watching “Dr. Doolittle,”  (the Eddie Murphy version rather than the Rex Harrison version) and giggling and cackling away. India and I are packing and talking.

Since we left South Africa, the specialized vocabulary of the family has changed again.  Some of the phrases which have come into frequent usage are:

“A dingo stole my baby!” - None of us has actually seen the old Meryl Streep movie, but the kids find it very amusing to say. When we were at the sheep station, Ian and Di gave us the details of the actual case, back in the early 1980s,  and talked about why it sort of traumatized Australia.  When we were in Tasmania, we all inserted the wilder marsupials (echidna, thalycine, pademelon) for the word dingo.  My favorite is “A wombat stole my baby!”

“Stop calling me mate!” - Tallulah quickly got tired of me imitating an Australian accent and addressing her with the universal Australian term of endearment.  I have stopped calling her mate.

“That’s one …” - We have tried to integrate a parenting technique, called (cheesily enough), 1-2-3 Magic!  Basically, instead of debating or discussing undesired behavior, it means just saying “That’s one…,” followed by two and three if necessary.  When you get to three, some agreed punishment, usually a lost privilege or time out, happens automatically.  It has worked amazingly well.

“Just another wombat”- when we were in Tasmania, we were seeing so many animals that we all got a little blase about them.  We spent a lot of time trying to see a platypus and a Tasmanian Devil in the wild.  Whenever we saw something that got our hopes up, but turned out to be a wombat, pademelon, wallaby, kangaroo, or possum, the kids would say “Oh well, just another _______.”  It is amazing how quickly something becomes the new normal.

“I come from a land down under” - India bought a 5-CD “Greatest Hits from the 1980s” collection at a petrol station,  on the drive between Sydney and Melbourne.  This resulted in a lot of bad parental singing along, and a stream of recollections that our children found uninteresting.  Zola really liked the Men at Work Australian classic, and even had me look up the lyrics on Google as we drove.  He sings it over and over.  Tallulah is partial to The Proclaimers, “I Would Walk 500 Miles,” and insists that she and I will walk 500 miles over the summer, so she will get a special hiking patch from her day camp.

“Josh?  Josh, where are you?” - I made the mistake of describing the movie “Blair Witch Project” to Zola during a hike one day.  He loves to work himself into being scared of abstract dangers (which is also why we spend so much time talking about snakes, spiders, scorpions, etc.).  Now, every few days, usually when we are outside, he will goof around by getting a worried look on his face, and shouting for Josh.

“Are we leaving today?” - Tallulah has gotten in the habit of saying this every morning.  Regardless of the answer, she then says, “I want to stay here for six mornings!”  Always six mornings, even when we were at the roadside motel in Narooma.  She seems happy wherever she is.

Off to the air strip (one minute away), for the flight back to Sydney.

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.

HALFWAY DOWN MOUNT GOWER

Greetings from Lord Howe Island!

This morning, India and I got up early and left the kids with a sitter from the hotel.  At 7 o’clock, we met our guide for the day, Dean Hiscox.  Under cloudy skies we started the 10-kilometer trek up Mount Gower, the 875-meter peak that towers over the west end of Lord Howe Island.  It turned out to be one of the great adventures of our trip thus far.

Dean offers group climbs up Mount Gower a few times each week, but each is scheduled to take 8-9 hours.  He told us that the group climbs attract participants of all fitness levels, which means a bit of waiting around.  We organized a private trip in the mistaken (and hubristic) belief that we would run up and down the mountain, and be back at the hotel within 3-4 hours max.

The hike started with a 200-meter scramble over big volcanic rocks on the beach.  The sheer cliff face of the mountain loomed above us in the mist.  Using safety ropes, we climbed 80 meters more or less straight up, and then walked along a narrow grassy ledge, with the waves crashing beneath us.  Dean listened quietly to India’s and my tough talk about our experiences hiking in South Africa, and Patagonia, and Tasmania (most recently).

For the next hour, we climbed gradually through dense rain forest.  Waterfalls splashed around us, and we crossed rushing streams.  The vegetation was soaked from last night’s rain, and soon we were too.

Before he started guiding, Dean was the forest ranger on Lord Howe Island for 16 years.  His knowledge of the mountain’s trees and bird life was staggering. One of Dean’s signature accomplishments as the ranger was to hunt down every single feral goat and pig on the island, helping to return the ecosystem to its natural “pre-mammalian” balance.

Finally, we broke out of the dense jungle about 500 meters above the ocean.  The clouds parted momentarily, and we could see down steep slopes on both sides to the water.  Dean pointed to a ridge, leading toward the summit, and said, “From here we start the steep part of the climb.”  I had already been struggling to keep up with Dean and India.  As we started climbing near-vertical pitches, pulling ourselves up hand over hand on the safety ropes, I fell far behind them.  I found it tough going, and many times I just trudged along in slow, tiny steps.

ONE OF THE STEEP SECTIONS

Nearly an hour later, we pulled ourselves up a final long pitch, and Dean said, “Congratulations, you are at the top.”  We were in a “mist forest” of tall grasses and densely clustered palm trees.  

As I struggled to catch my breath, and looked at my palms rubbed raw from the safety ropes, I said to Dean, “I have been absolutely humbled by Mount Gower.  I will never again make any claims to fitness or climbing expertise.”  Again, Dean just listened quietly, without a hint of an “I told you so.”  He even tried to make me feel better by saying, “This is quite a workout for me too, getting up here in 2 hours.”  Neither he nor India seemed very fatigued, though.

As we walked across the dense vegetation on the summit to a view point, Dean told us that last night’s rain would bring out the leeches.  Sure enough, all three of us found several small bloodsuckers on our legs almost immediately.  This was an unpleasant first for me.

By this time, the summit was completely covered in cloud, so getting to the viewing point was a bit anti-climactic.  I mentioned to India and Dean that I was “as wet as if I had jumped into a pond.  I couldn’t actually be any wetter.”   Just then, of course, it started to pour with rain, proving me wrong.  India went to the edge and yelled, “Kim Fennell!!!” in honor of her friend who is recovering from a kidney-pancreas transplant.  Dean dug his “summit book” out of a waterproof bag, and gave it to India to sign.  She scribbled a few words, and we started back down.

For most of the descent, we faced toward the mountain and sort of rappelled down, using the safety ropes to traverse the slippery rock faces.  We got incredibly dirty, banging into the rocks and slipping on roots and mud.  The ropes have been in place for about 20 years, and I honestly don’t know how anyone made it up or down without them.

As we descended, the rain stopped, and the clouds lifted.  We had a spectacular view of both sides of the island 2,000 feet below us: the calm, light-blue lagoon and sandy beaches to our left, and the rocky cliffs and black, crashing surf to our right.  It was very dramatic and beautiful.

700 METERS UP

It took us two and a half hours to get down, because we were pretty cautious, I guess.  Dean turned out to be great company: he, India and I had an interesting discussion about race relations in Australia, the socioeconomy of Lord Howe Island, and his experiences growing up in Australia and the Solomon Islands.  I think he and India had an equally interesting conversation on the way up, but I had been too far behind them to hear it or participate. 

It was a great hike.

INDIA AND DEAN ON THE ROPE LINE

Zola and Tallulah were not at the lodge when we got back.  Samantha, the young New Zealander who was watching them, had led an expedition to Ned’s beach to make sand castles and feed the fish.  The kids walked in about an hour after we returned, a little sunburnt, but very happy, and filled with exciting stories about Sam the Wonderful.  We were glad to have a a little time to shower and change.  India pulled three blood-filled leeches off of her body, one of which we saved in a glass for Zola to look at.

Sam is one of four young women who were high-school friends in New Zealand, and who seem to run everything at our lodge, Arajilla.  All four of them are amazingly competent, energetic, and friendly.  They have really made our stay at Arajilla special.

In the late afternoon, we took a “Glass-Bottom Four Stop Snorkel Tour” with our new friend, Dean.  Unlike our snorkeling trip with Anthony, earlier in the week, we went to the north end of the lagoon, in the shadow of Mount Gower.  I looked at its mist-shrouded cliffs with great respect.

The snorkeling was amazing.  Truly fantastic.  Tallulah (the littlest snorkeler) swam with me gamely for about 20 minutes at the first site, but then started really having trouble with her mask.  Dean handed us an ingeniously modified boogie board, with a big plastic window in it.  Tallulah floated around happily from then on, looking down gleefully at the fish and the coral.

The second dive site was on a reef where people have been feeding fish for many years.  The variety and number of fish was just unbelievable.  My favorite was called a “multi-spotted sweet lips.”  Zola was excited to see a group of big, ugly blue fish called doubleheaders (they have very pronounced foreheads, used to crush sea urchins) and even more excited to see a few Galapagos sharks cruising around malevolently.  Dean had warned us we would see them, and made sure we knew they were harmless.  It was still a little disconcerting to see these guys swimming near India and the kids. 

The last site was the most amazing.  We saw a nasty-looking moray eel poking out of the coral about 3 meters down, his toothy mouth biting at us impotently as we swam overhead.  We also saw the wildly poisonous lion fish (or butterfly cod) sitting placidly on the sand next to the base of the reef.  The old dangerous-animal expression “they are more afraid of you than you are of them” doesn’t seem to apply to these fish.

All of us really enjoyed the snorkeling, but it is tiring.  Before dinner, India was contemplating a run, while I was contemplating a nap.  Now everyone is watching a movie and getting ready for an early bed time.  What a day!

SNORKEL BABES

Greetings from Lord Howe Island!  We are roughly 600 kilometers northeast of Sydney, on a small volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean.  Actually, we are told that LHI is seven volcanic peaks connected by sand dunes.  This seems like a lot of peaks, given that the island is so tiny; only 11 kilometers long and 1-2 kilometers wide.

Landing on Lord Howe Island was wild.  The turboprop descended into nothing but ocean for a long time, then we threaded the needle between two steep green mountains, and then landed on a runway on the only flat, grassy spot on the island.  The beach was about 10 meters from the port wingtip.

Lord Howe Island feels and looks as remote as it is:  kind of like Gilligan’s Island meets South Pacific with the emerald hills of Ireland and no betel nuts (as far as I can tell).  The beaches are all very beautiful white sand or black volcanic rock, and the shore line is protected by coral reefs.  There are palm trees along the beaches, and dense rain forests in the interior.  There are lots of dirt paths leading to hidden coves or single-story homes in the forest.  A few cows wandering around heightens the rural feel.  LHI is almost aggressively undeveloped and non-commercial.

Interestingly, as in New Zealand, there are no indigenous mammals here.  When the British first landed, in 1788, there were only birds, fish, and a few reptiles.

Except for birdsong and the very occasional car, it is quiet.  LHI is a World Heritage Site, which seems justifiable, in case anyone asks our opinion. 

LHI has only 350 residents, and the island council has limited the number of paying guests to 400 on any given night.  To stay out of the winter wind and spray, all of the lodges or residences have been built away from the water.  None of the buildings even have very good views.  We are staying at a small retreat called Arajilla (www.arajilla.com.au), where all 12 of the bungalows are hidden in the dense rain forest, about 30 meters from the beach.  Think “Mosquito Coast” rather than “From Here to Eternity.”

There are few cars, and only one main paved road.  Aside from the post office and two cafes, the island’s limited commerce (boat tours, fishing charters, surf-board rentals) is conducted from a half-dozen corrugated shacks on the beach front.  Most people seem to get around on bicycles, which are called “push bikes” for some unknown island reason.  Everyone wears helmets on the push-bikes, because LHI’s lone police officer enforces the helmet law very aggressively.  There is a primary school: we saw tan, barefoot children in their uniforms heading home this afternoon.

The island receives supplies every other week from a small freighter, which had just docked near the airstrip when we arrived.  Someone told us that the following day’s meals are always the best, but to be careful on the day that the freighter docks, because the restaurants “have to get rid of all their old stuff.”

The island’s small size, remoteness and affluence create a culture of trust-based innocence.  The bicycles are all left unlocked,  and we were not even given a key to our bungalow.  When we buy things, merchants say, “It’s OK if you don’t have any money. Just come back and pay me later.”  One of the beaches even has an honor system  (a cash box, like a roadside farm stall) for renting snorkeling equipment, wet suits and bodyboards.  Never seen that before.

After we got settled in yesterday morning, Zola and I walked down through the rainforest path and onto the beach.  We found two huge green sea turtles in the shallow water, and swam around with them for a while.  Amazing.  After lunch, we went on a “2 Snorkel Stop Glass-Bottom-Boat Cruise.”  The boat’s owner was a young and very friendly guy named Anthony.  He mentioned that his family had been on Lord Howe Island since 1853.  The ads for all of the tourist activities seem to emphasize how many generations the guide’s family has lived on the Island.  

Anthony’s ancestor moved here from the U.S., which leads me to speculate that he might have been in trouble with the law.  This would have been a good place to hide.  Anthony told us that LHI was a great place to grow up - the island is danger-free (no predators or snakes or “kidnappings and stuff”) - so kids can run wild and free.   That is, until they turn 12 and get sent to the mainland for boarding school.  Anthony stayed in Sydney for university and for a few years of work before moving home to LHI.  He is the only one of his primary-school classmates who has moved back.

The snorkeling trip was fun.  Both kids were wide-eyed when they saw colorful fish from the glass-bottom boat, as we cruised out over coral formations in the big lagoon on the island’s north side.  

At the first snorkeling site, Zola and I went in, and India and Tallulah stayed on the boat with Anthony.  We swam about 200 meters from the boat, into the breaking waves on the reef.  We saw an incredible amount of beautiful coral (called “blue staghorn” as I found out) and loads of fish.  Zola was brave and delighted, shrieking and grabbing me every time he saw an interesting fish.  India said she could hear him, even through his snorkel, from about 100 meters away.

THE MATE WAS MIGHTY SAILOR MAN

After about 40 minutes, we got back in the boat, and motored to the second snorkeling site.  India and Zola went in the water.  Then Tallulah, the littlest snorkeler, decided that she wanted to try as well.  Wearing a wetsuit one size too big, and clutching a pool noodle for extra buoyancy, she stayed in the water for about half an hour.  She kept her face in, and giggled as she looked at the fish.   A brave little girl!

We motored around looking for turtles for a while in the turquoise bay, and then Anthony took us back to shore.  It was the perfect amount of time on the water.  

From the cruise, we rode our bikes over to Ned’s Beach, where people feed bread crumbs to the fish every afternoon.  We got in the shallow water, and big fish were all around us.  Most were some type of blue fish, about 30-40 centimeters long, but there were also kingfish (looking a lot like yellowtail) which were a meter or more.   Much bigger than Tallulah.

After we got over the creepiness factor (fish brushing against our legs), it was fun to look at them.  A kind grandmother gave us some bread, and we set off multiple feeding frenzies.  Both kids thought this was just great.

Yesterday, the weather was perfect.  Today it turned overcast and windy, so we spent the morning watching movies and waiting for the rain.  Arajilla has a selection of 88 DVDs, and the kids picked “E.T.” and “Splash,” both classics.  Tallulah cried when she thought E.T. was dead, and spent a lot of the afternoon telling us “Be Good!” and calling Zola “Ell-ee-utt.”  

We went for a bike ride in the late afternoon, all the way down to the north end of the island.  We got off of the bikes, and walked for about a kilometer on a dirt track next to the ocean to the base of Mount Gower, the highest point on the island.  At this point, the long-threatened rain started to come down in buckets.  We all ran back to the bikes, laughing and shouting, then pedaled furiously back to our side of the island.  Since we were already wet, we went down to feed the fish at Ned’s Beach again.   

Despite the rain, we were all in good humor by the time we got back to Arajilla.   After hot showers we went to dinner.  In a rare move, Tallulah fell asleep at the table.  Now India, Zola, and I are huddled on the sofa.  A nice ending to a damp day in the Pacific.

LORD HOWE ISLAND