page_title: Lord Howe Island
section_title: Activities
hierarchical_section_title: Lord Howe Island / Governance and land tenure / Tourism / Activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Little island on Mt Lidgbird track Lord Howe Island 8June2011
context_page_description: Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, 600 km directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, 780 km northeast of Sydney, and about 900 km southwest of Norfolk Island. It is about 10 km long and between 0.3 and 2.0 km wide with an area of 14.55 km², though just 3.98 km² of that comprise the low-lying developed part of the island.
  Along the west coast is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon. Most of the population lives in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower. The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets, and rocks. Apart from Lord Howe Island itself, the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Ball's Pyramid about 23 km to the southeast of Howe. To the North lies a cluster of seven small uninhabited islands called the Admiralty Group.
  The first reported sighting of Lord Howe Island took place on 17 February 1788, when Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of the Armed Tender HMS Supply, was en route from Botany Bay to found a penal settlement on Norfolk Island.
context_section_description: As distances to sites of interest are short, cycling is the main means of transport on the island. Tourist activities include golf (9-hole), lawn bowls, tennis, fishing (including deep-sea game fishing), yachting, windsurfing, kitesurfing, kayaking, and boat trips (including glass-bottom tours of the lagoon). Swimming, snorkelling, and scuba diving are also popular in the lagoon, as well as off Tenth of June Island, a small rocky outcrop in the Admiralty group where an underwater plateau drops 36 m (118 ft) to reveal extensive gorgonia and black corals growing on the vertical walls. Other diving sites are found off Ball's Pyramid, 26 km (16 mi) away, where  trenches, caves, and volcanic drop-offs occur.
  Bushwalking, natural history tours, talks, and guided walks take place along the many tracks, the most challenging being the eight-hour guided hike to the top of Mount Gower. The island has 11 beaches, and hand-feeding the 1 m-long (3 ft) kingfish (Seriola lalandi) and large wrasse at Ned's Beach is very popular. Walking tracks cover the island with difficulty graded from 1–5, they include—in the north: Transit Hill 2-hour return, 2 km (1.2 mi); Clear Place, 1– to 2-hour return; Stevens Reserve; North Bay, 4-hour return, 4 km (2.5 mi); Mount Eliza; Old Gulch, 20-minute return, 300 m (330 yd); Malabar Hill and Kims Lookout, 3 or 5-hour return, 7 km (4.3 mi) and—in the south: Goat House Cave, 5-hour return, 6 km (3.7 mi); Mount Gower, 8-hour return, 14 km (8.7 mi); Rocky Run and Boat Harbour; Intermediate Hill, 45-minute return, 1 km (0.62 mi); and Little Island, 40-minute return, 3 km (1.9 mi). Recreational climbers must obtain permission from the Lord Howe Island Board.
caption: Bushwalking to Little Island (bottom right) – Mount Lidgbird track
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