Lord Howe Island and the Snowy Mountains
12 day tour | Feb 18 – March 1, 2022
With Australians restricted to travel within their own country and now the arrival of the Trans-Tasman bubble Lord Howe Island is already almost totally booked up for the next year. I expressed interest very early so have been very fortunate to have been able to reschedule my tour to February 2022. With limited flights to and from this island and limited accommodation there, my tour offers a rare chance to get to Lord Howe for the foreseeable future!
We’re going to have five nights on this island, all of which is a Unesco-listed site with a visitor cap of 400 people. Lord Howe has been described by Sir David Attenborough as “so extraordinary, it’s almost unbelievable”.
The island’s combination of spectacular volcanic geography, rare endemic species, the world’s most southernmost coral reef, a huge lagoon and an amazing mix of marine life sustained by a mix of warm tropical and cool temperature ocean currents, is unique.. It has more species diversity than the Galapagos and is truly an island ark with unique flora and fauna. Feral cats, goats, pigs and even rats were completely eradicated by 2019 and even introduced weeds have nearly been wiped out.
To add to the highlights of this tour and to make the journey across the Tasman extra worthwhile, the last five days of our tour are going to be a complete contrast as we head back to the Australian mainland up into Snowy Mountains, and ending our tour in the nation’s capital Canberra, which often gets missed off New Zealanders’ Aussie itineraries!
