We recently took our family on a holiday to Lord Howe Island to visit some friends who live there. Could you even imagine living on Lord Howe Island haha.
My husband did most of the planning and organising as it was one of his best mates that we were visiting. I knew Lord Howe Island was out in the ocean somewhere off the east coast of Australia but it was going to be completely honest I had never heard of the place until my husband mentioned that his friend had moved there.
We have travelled quite a bit with our kids. We have taken them overseas 4 times to Cambodia, Singapore, Dubai and Thailand. Hubby and I have also been to quite a few other countries before kids including Kenya, Spain, US, India, Morocco, Bali, China and the list goes on. We have also had quite a few holidays in various parts of Australia both camping and in hotels.
The reason I mention this is because it all kind of pales in comparison to our time on Lord Howe Island. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t really thinking about it or expecting too much as my main brain energy was going into packing for a family of 5 including a baby, so I was amazingly surprised.
Lord Howe Island was incredible to say the least. It was one of the best family holidays we have had to date and we would both go back in a heartbeat.
Initially I was a little concerned that there was no reception and limited internet however in the end that was awesome as I really did get to disconnect.
The island was stunning. It didn’t matter which way you looked you were surrounded by amazingness. The beaches were as perfect as they come.
In total 374 people live on the Island as full time residents and there are only 400 total tourist beds. This meant that even though we were there at peak season it still felt like we were the only ones on the island at times.
There are only a few cars on the island and the main mode of transport is bicycle. This was one of our favourite things for both us and the kids. It gave our kids a bit more freedom than usual to get out and about without needing us to drive them and the exercise was great. Everything you would want to visit on the island is within reach on a bicycle.
Even though there are a few shops on the island buying things is not really what going to Lord Howe is about. Our kids totally forgot about what they could get and became emerged in what they could do.
While we were on the island we spent a lot of time at the beaches. There were quite a few different beaches we visited and it was always a fantastic time.
At one particular beach called Neds Beach we were literally swimming with the fish. At other beaches the kids were jumping off pontoons, kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding, snorkelling and having the time of our lives. We got our equipment from Ocean View Boat Shed. We didn’t have to book any of these activities as the beaches are setup for you to come along anytime you like during the day and hire whatever you need to have some fun with the family.
It was so flexible and easy it was truly a holiday.
We also had the chance to go on a coral viewing and snorkelling tour with Lord Howe Environmental Tours in a glass bottom boat and it was fantastic. Both of our older daughters were snorkelling for the first time on Lord Howe and they loved it. We were swimming with baby sharks for a short time which freaked them out a little but having said that they do love telling people they swam with sharks haha.
We also spent another morning on a turtle tour with Marine Adventures Turtle Tours exploring the bay looking for some of the giant turtles that live there. All of our kids loved seeing turtles larger than car tires just sitting on the bottom of the bay doing their turtle thing.
Another massive highlight for us was visiting the untapped coral rocks pools of Lord Howe Island. It’s funny because we have taken our kids to aquariums before and after a while they get a bit bored from seeing similar things over and over. I found it really interesting that essentially we were seeing the same thing but in real life and they did not want to leave. We spend hours exploring these rock pools and it was one of our favourite things we did.
Mount Gower is the main mountain on Lord Howe that you can climb as long as you have a guide however this was not an option for us because our kids were too little for the climb. It did however rain one evening while we were there which created a few natural waterfalls near the bottom of the mountain. They only appear for a short amount of time while they are channelling the rain water off the mountain. We made it up to one of the waterfalls early in the morning and it was amazing to see.
As you can see from our experience on the island it truly was heaven. One of the other great things is it was only a 2 hour flight from Brisbane to this magical paradise so it was not really stressful at all with the 3 kids compared to the bigger flights we have done.
One thing I will note is it is not a budget holiday and the cost of flights is quite pricey. One way you can get around this is by using frequent flyer points as they go on distance rather than cost which makes it a similar amount of points to Sydney from Brisbane.
Other than that you may have to save your pennies but in my honest opinion BEST.HOLIDAY.EVER!
This post was originally written and published on The Holidaying Family.
