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This is Lord Howe Island. A tiny island about a third of the way between Australia and New Zealand, goverened as part of New South Wales. About 12km long by 4km wide (about 7½ miles by 2½ miles for those who use imperial), with a mere 18km (11 miles) of road. This is where I hale from. I love it, I hate it, I miss it but I could never live there.

Love It

It is a haven of isolation. There is no mobile coverage here. Many people tell the time by the looking at the sun. Shoes are completely optional. Several people own as many boats as they do cars. Bicycles are considered a major form of transport. Not many people lock their doors, everyone looks out for everyone.


There is one policeman, his main jobs are making sure tourists wear helmets when riding bikes, making sure everyones vehicle and boat licence is up to date and registered, and also acts as a customs agent should someone come via personal plane/yacht.

Because of it's isolation away from city lights, the skies at night are beautiful, especially during a new moon or if the moon hasn't risen/has already set. I would often lie on the beach and stare up at the sky and count the shooting stars and see how many satellites I could see and often wish I'd see a UFO (there are several UFO stories on the island). The temperatures there are lovely. It rarely gets over 34°C (93°F) and rarely goes below 12°C (53°F).

The storms there are cacophanous with wind speeds regularly reaching darn near hurricane force, which as a storm buff I could watch for hours trees seemed to bend to point where surely they would snap only to bounce back and take another brunt.

The warm waters from the Great Barrier Reef come down mid-late december and stick around till April or May making the waters on the island just warm enough to support the southern most reef in the world. With the level of isolation it has, the plant and wildlife there both aquatic and terrestrial a lot of it cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

It's one of the best places to grow up as a child. Traditional get out of the house and have fun kind of childhood. No snakes, almost no poisonous spiders. Just gotta make sure you're home for dinner.

Hate It

There are about 350 permanent residence on the island, 70% of which I'm related to. Every one knows everyone, everyone knows everyones business. If you don't wave at people or at least acknowledge them as they drive by they will worry that you are angry at them or hold a grudge.

The place is slow and change comes even slower. Because of this the only thing that's fast on the island is the rumor mill. It's not uncommon to see two cars stopped side by side in the middle of the road so the drivers can have a quick conversation because it may very well be 20 minutes before the next car wants to come through.

Also because once you've climbed all the mountains and snorkelled all the reefs there's almost nothing to do on the island. With no mobiles and very limited Satellite Internet, the main hobby of most islanders is drinking. I remember one year statistics came in saying that Lord Howe Island had come in 2nd to Darwin for largest average alcohol consumption per capita in Australia. The sad thing is about 35% of the population is highly religious and doesn't drink, so the other 65% had to have made up for it somehow. Someone getting alcohol poisoning is considered a sign of an awesome weekend on the island.

I mentioned before about the extremely religious sect of the island. Despite having a population of less people than the highschool I went to off the island. The Island has three churches. I'm agnostic at best and have the similar views as George Carlin and Stephen Fry when it comes to the matter. I've only ever been kicked out of one class ever. Religious Studies on the island, ie. Christianity hour. I got given a "study" period due to asking too many questions. I spent this "study" period wandering aimlessly around the school waiting for time to pass.

Back however many decades ago when the government was first laying a deep ocean fibre cable in between Australia and New Zealand, they offered to hook Lord Howe Island up to it for free. We would have had one of the fastest internet connections available in the entirety of Australia back then. The locals refused saying they "didn't want an umbilical chord to the mainland". I still see red everytime I think of this story.

Also Island politics is whacked. The island is World Heritage Listed and to keep that heritage listing you'd think that the islanders would do everything in their power to promote clean living and recycling etc.
Our energy is generated by a diesel generator. The diesel has to be shipped to the island. Even when the old generator died, they just got a new one, despite the fact that the island is a very good canditate for wind turbines.

On the island everything we need, has to be shipped to island and rubbish also has to be shipped off. To reduce this our board bought a glass crusher/tumbler so that any and all blass bottles could be re-used as bichumen to pave our roads. almost two decades later, the local dump still has a pile of glass waiting to be used and we still ship bichumen over to make our roads.

On the island there is a massive rodent problem. There have been successful trials of a poison bait that has a very short usability date that once it breaks down/rots it's completely inert/non-poisonous. There have been several successful cases of it being used on small islands around New Zealand and I believe also Seychelles. It's taken a decade of bickering and debating and multiple votes, but they've finally been able to get authorisation to do this on the island.

One of the main arguments against it was: "We'll have to close down during the poisoning and we'll lose interest from tourists."

• This will be done in winter, most of the hotels are closed during this time anyway.
• We will actually have to get one of the hotels to open up to have someone where for all the scientists to stay.
• More Hotels rooms will likely be needed as they expect to have many environmental buffs to attend to witness it.
• Once done, this will actually attract MORE tourism to the island, not less.

Miss It

I miss the wildlife and the forest there.

The smell of clean beaches. The calls of the LHI Giant Currawong. The taste of freshly cooked Kingfish. The winding bush trails where you can almost hike from one end of the island to the other without facing civilisation. I miss having feet hard as nails able to safely climb across jagged rock and coral barefoot without so much as flinching. I miss surfskiing and seeing how far I could push myself before I had to return to shore. I miss watching baby faerie terns slowly grow up and become just as majestic as their parents. I miss having a tab at the local store. I miss the old run down farm that I used to raid and get endless supplies of snow-peas, blue berries, cherry tomatos and crab-apples.

There was once a cow paddock on the island filled with wild garlic. The owner of that paddock would raise one bully calf in it per year. Locals used to fight and try to outbig eachother for that meat because it tasted like it had been marinating in garlic for days before hand but it was just the meat.
There was a cafe there called Blue Peters that was a cafe and butcher where you'd buy your cut of meat and take it a big round table with a cauldren firepit in the middle and you'd cook up your own meat. They also had the best potato wedges on the island.

I miss walking around in my swimsuit in the summer rain not giving a damn because I was wet from swimming anyway. So many little things that I think back on and sigh.

But I could never live there

In between the lack of privacy due to the social dynamic on the island, the stifling isolation, the lack of technology none of that is the nail in the coffin for me.
The main point that killed it for me: NO CATS! You heard right. No cats allowed on the island due to too much rare birdlife and a lot of it flightless. I understand, but life is not 100% without the purrs of a contented kitty. After all, home is where the heart is.

My Mia <3