Lord Howe Island specialises in unique and unspoilt nature, with a side of fuss -free luxury, writes Thomas Bywater
On the back of the door, at the exclusive Arajilla Retreat, was a licence.
"Guest numbers on Lord Howe Island are strictly limited" it proclaimed.
"You few - you lucky few - are one of just 400 tourists allowed on the island at a time. What's more, you've checked into this place."
I paraphrase, but the sentiment on the Lord Howe Island Board bed licence was undeniably smug.
Sometimes called the "Galapagos of Australia" the entire island is a Unesco World Heritage site. The 14.5 square kilometre atoll packs a lot into its shores and the coral lagoon. You'll find not only made-for-nature-documentary moments but also $9000-a-night lodges.
Lorde Howe specialises in low-key, unfussy luxury and untrammelled nature.
It's a unique overlap of qualities that has attracted visitors from worlds as far apart as David Attenborough and the assorted Chris family Hemsworth. It is proof that A-list luxury and large-scale conservation can live in symbiosis.
This doesn't mean that it's all fine dining and private valets.
By nature Lord Howe is an expensive place to stay. Two hours' flight in a doddery Qantaslink Dash-8 from Sydney will set you back about one and a half times the cost of flying to Auckland. It's a kind of self-selecting indulgence that requires visitors to forgo some comforts. It's not for everyone. You won't find a mobile phone network or seatbelts in cars, but you will find infinity pools and kingfish sashimi.
Scarcity is what makes Lord Howe tick. It's what allows a couple of five-star resorts to operate comfortably on this rock in the middle of the Tasman Sea. I don't just mean vulgar economic scarcity, but natural scarcity. The entire island is Crown-owned conservation land and is leased to the resorts, businesses and three hundred something residents. Home to over one hundred endemic species of bird, coral and plants, humans are here only by permit - even the "islanders".
A good example is the Lord Howe phasmid. The world's largest and rarest insect, they exist only on Howe's outer islands and in numbers fewer than Siberian tigers.
The BBC's apex naturalist, Attenborough, referred to the "tiny speck of land off the East Coast of Australia" as "so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable". Yes, he was referring to the Providence petrels and white terns, which you can literally charm from the sky with a call. However, it could easily apply to the whole atoll.
No matter how well-heeled the visitor, the needs of tourists will always be secondary to the islands' real VIPs: Very Important Phasmids.
Halfway Howe
Walking the boardwalk under a canopy of Kentia palms and banyan trees at the back of Arajilla, you eventually reach Old Settlement Beach.
From the right place you can see the whole island at once. The white sand, palms and imposing bluffs of Mount Gower conjure up many places. At turns there are brilliant flashes of the coral sea, the cloud covered peaks could be a Pacific motu. The unclaimed wreckage of an old war plane rests peacefully, out to pasture with the odd cow.
"Lord Howe island is very blessed," says Bill Shead.
Bill and his wife Janne bought Arajilla back in 1987, back when it was a collection of huts in a two-acre plot of Kentias. They have since built it into 12 visitor suites and a warren of wooden boardwalks through the dense green bush.
The native palms that characterise the spot have been exported for centuries as potted plants. A perennial favourite with everyone from Queen Victoria to millennial-pink brunch spots, they lend a sense of the resort being far more tropical than it really is.
"There's a good feeling about the place," he says.
"It's never been made a penal settlement, like Norfolk Island. Nobody was displaced, there was never any indigenous population."
Prevailing winds and currents meant Howe was blissfully isolated long after the surrounding islands.
Bill too only discovered the island by chance.
"I first flew over in a flying boat in 1957; sounds like ancient history," he says, recalling first sighting the island.
"The four engines made the most colossal noise, there was no runway."
Landing on the coral lagoon, visiting by Short Sunderland was a time warp even then.
Howe trundles along at the island-wide 25-km-per-hour speed limit. The economy is largely honesty-box based. Everything from the local golf course, wetsuit and surf hire operate on the "help yourself" policy.
Today the unplugged luxury couldn't be more desirable. There's no phone coverage, few roads to follow, and rarely any need for foot coverings. The fact that there's no cinema on the island and precious few TV sets make it a haven for more recognisable guests.
"Celebrities? We don't really look for them," is the reply from Bill. Which I'd believe, despite the fact all the island and operators seem to all have their favourite story from when the Hemsworths came to stay.
Little changes on the island, which is governed by strict conservation rules. Since 1953 it has been the domain of the Lord Howe Island Board. Part conservation body, part de-facto government they oversee everything from pest control to taxes.
One of the side effects of living in the island park reserve, is that sooner or later all conversations return to "The Board". Perhaps another reason Islanders stick so loyally to the island, beyond its charms, is that the Board has the power to revoke the claims of absentee leaseholders.
Still it is a small price for living in paradise and one of the oldest Unesco Heritage Sites.
Here, you'll be picnicking on some of the most pristine beaches in New South Wales, helping yourself to the well-stocked log-burner barbecues and snorkelling on coral coves that are within paddling distance of the shore.
As a visitor to Arajilla you can enjoy the lifestyle on a short stay in the banyan grove.
Howe high?
For all its reputation as a "holiday isle" there is another, more adventurous side to Lord Howe.
Mt Gower is a 875-metre slab of volcanic granite that is impossible to miss. The highest point on the island, next to the 777-metre Mt Lidgbird, the twin peaks command a place in every picture-postcard view of the island.
Waking with the mutton birds, at the crack of dawn, Dean Hiscox points up at a thin, green strip cutting across the cliff-face. "We'll be walking up there," he says, handing out helmets.
A stocky, bald outdoorsman, who was made to wear a mountaineering helmet, Dean runs Lord Howe Environmental Tours. He is one of just three people with concessions to take hikers up the track. It is regularly referred to as Australia's most challenging day walk and is only accessible with a guide.
"It's not your average bushwalk. It's not something you can just launch yourself into, but the rewards are incredible."
Two metres wide and a couple of hundred metres above the lagoon, the crossing is little more than a goat track. Or it was a goat track until Dean got involved. The former ranger for Lord Howe was in charge of a programme to remove invasive species from the island.
In 1999 he commissioned a team of Department of Conservation trappers from New Zealand to rid Howe of the billy goats and other species that had gone wild. A cause that DoC could sympathise with, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. They have since been back, completing a $15 million contract to eradicate rats. The results of the Aussie-Kiwi conservation project are clear to see all the way up the mountain stack.
Roaming free across the island, the flightless Lord Howe woodhen - a dead ringer for its Kiwi cousin the weka - now numbers more than 1000. The likeness is enough to make you double-take.
Hoisting myself up ropes on Mt Gower, the weka-look-alikes aren't the only uncannily familiar sight poking out of the bush. Golden kōwhai and red pōhutukawa blossoms poke through the canopy in summer. It's a reminder that Lord Howe may be 700km closer to Australia, but has many more connections to the New Zealand side of the Ditch.
However, after some three hours of slog, all similarities fall away. Above 500 metres is a landscape completely unique to Lord Howe.
The cloud forests found at the top of the mountains are biological islands in their own right. Orchids, mosses and ferns draw moisture directly from the clouds that snag on the summits as they make their way across the Tasman. When the clouds part, the mountains provide a window down on to Lord Howe's unrivalled place in the ocean.
To the south, Ball's Pyramid - a wicked-looking spike of black rock - can be seen. The spiny island is where, in the early 2000s, Dean was part of a team that discovered the first living phasmid seen in almost a century.
Although a trip not to be taken lightly, from the top of Gower you are presented with a new perspective on the tiny island. All these years, living fossils thought extinct were living cheek by jowl with New South Wales' most glamorous holidaymakers.
Easily seen in a single view, more difficult to appreciate quite how much is going on below you, Howe contains multitudes.
See more of Lord Howe and Arajilla Lodge on TVNZ1's Lap of Luxury, on Tuesday, June 7.
For more travel ideas, see visitnsw.comarajilla.com.au
