Melbourne Cup weekend is an excellent weekend to get out of Melbourne. I’d seen quite a bit of travel writing recently about Lord Howe Island, and decided to check into Capella Lodge, the most expensive lodge on the island, and pretty pricey by international standards as well. Qantas has a monopoly on this route, so an individual airfare at this time of year sets you back about $1000 Aussie dollars. For a 90 minute flight. Yep, pricey. Checking in to Capella Lodge as a solo traveller is $1200 per night, and I stay for three nights. Yep, pricey.
So is it worth it? Arriving a Lord Howe airport is all part of the experience…it’s like travelling in the south island of NZ and arriving on a flying pencil at Nelson or Blenheim airports. The weather is fair but variable, and the landing is perfectly fine. It’s not unusual however for the plane to not be able to land due to the wind conditions and have to head back to Sydney.
Capella Lodge is at the southern end of the island, about 4km from the town centre. It’s a nice lodge, with excellent views of Mount Lidgbird and Mount Gower. The communal areas – dining room and living area are nice, but not exceptional. $1200 buys me the cheapest room in the lodge, and whilst it has a nice view over the mountains, it is at best a 4 star hotel room. Breakfast, dinner and a mini bar with soft drinks and mineral water are included in the room rate. The food is artistically presented by the chef, but I can’t help feeling that the total package doesn’t represent value for money. Particularly when remembering to restock the mini-bar is apparently regarded as going above and beyond their normal ‘exceptional’ service standards. So there you have it – the quintessential problem with high-end tourism in Australia – over-priced and under-serviced. Oh, and take a pair of eye shades to sleep in unless you want to be woken up by broad daylight at 5am.
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- Sunset from Capella Lodge
Lord Howe is marketed as Australia’s answer to the Galapagos, and they seriously must never have visited the Galapagos. There are some birds and marine life in common, but they are poles apart. For the same money, you could go to the Galapagos and spend the same amount of time and see much more.
It’s not all bad though – Lord Howe has some nice hiking trails, in particular those out to Malabar, and to Mutton Bird Island. There are two approaches to Malabar, and you need to decide whether you want to start with a steep uphill using steps, or a steep descent down those same steps. If you choose the steps, you need to take the Max Nicholls track starting from North Bay. It’s hard on middle-aged knees on the ascent, but I think coming down them would be worse! Other than the view, the main reason to climb to Malabar Hill is to see the Red-billed Tropic birds (also resident in the Galapagos).
When I was there, a rock fall had closed the most popular track to Mutton Bird Island lookout (home to a colony of nesting masked boobies), so I ended up with a longer trek starting out from the south end of the island, over a track that appeared pretty unused in November. Steps on the approach to the lookout were well hidden by long grass, and the local currawongs were not welcoming – co-ordinated swooping by a nesting pair who weren’t in the least fooled by me wearing my sunglasses on the back of my head!
Blinky Beach and Ned’s Beach are home to nesting sooty terns. Unlike their Arctic cousins, the sooty terns aren’t prone to blitzkreig attacks on photographers or other passersby.
I’m not saying I’d never go back to Lord Howe – there is plenty of self-catering accommodation on the island and if I have to re-stock my own mini-bar I won’t notice the difference! But for the same $5000, I can think of other places I’d go first.
