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Lord Howe Island is a small, isolated island in the Tasman Sea, roughly 600 km east of mainland Australia and about 900 km west of New Zealand. Politically it belongs to Australia (the state of New South Wales), even though on maps it often looks like it’s sitting “between” the two countries.
It is volcanic in origin and quite dramatic: a narrow crescent-shaped island about 10 km long, with two steep mountains at the southern end (Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird) rising abruptly from the sea. The surrounding waters are notable because the coral reef there is the southernmost true coral reef in the world, mixing tropical and temperate marine species in an unusual way.
Human presence is very limited by design. The permanent population is only a few hundred people, and visitor numbers are capped at around 400 at any one time to protect the ecosystem. There is a small airstrip with flights from Australia, but no large-scale tourism infrastructure—no high-rise hotels, no crowds, and very little nightlife. It’s often described as deliberately “frozen” in a mid-20th-century kind of calm.
Biologically, the island is famous. Many plants, insects, and birds are endemic, having evolved in isolation. The Lord Howe woodhen is a classic conservation success story: once nearly extinct due to introduced predators, it was saved through intensive management. Because of this ecological significance, the island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In short, it’s one of those tiny specks on the map that turns out to be a geological oddity, an evolutionary laboratory, and a place that has consciously chosen to remain small and quiet.
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The island is named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, a prominent British naval officer who later became Admiral of the Fleet. He was a major figure in the Royal Navy in the late 18th century and well known in Britain at the time.
Lord Howe Island was first sighted in 1788 by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball of the Royal Navy, while he was sailing the HMS Supply from Sydney to Norfolk Island. Ball named the island in honor of Lord Howe, following the common practice of the period of flattering senior naval and political figures. Ball also left his own mark: Mount Lidgbird, one of the island’s two dramatic southern peaks, carries his name.
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No. Richard Howe never visited the island, and almost certainly never even saw the southern hemisphere.
Lord Howe (1726–1799) spent his entire naval career in the North Atlantic, Caribbean, and European waters. He was already a very senior figure by the time Australia was settled, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty and later as Admiral of the Fleet. When the island was sighted and named in 1788, Howe was in Britain, deeply involved in naval administration and politics during a period that included the aftermath of the American War of Independence and the run-up to the French Revolutionary Wars.
So the name is purely honorific. This was entirely typical of the era: explorers routinely named newly sighted places after powerful patrons or celebrated figures who had no personal connection to them. In contrast, the man who did see the island, Henry Lidgbird Ball, ended up with his name attached to Mount Lidgbird rather than the island itself.
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There were none.
Lord Howe Island had no Indigenous or native human population prior to European discovery. When Henry Lidgbird Ball sighted it in 1788, the island was entirely uninhabited. Archaeological work has found no evidence of earlier human settlement, temporary or permanent.
That absence makes sense geographically. The island is very small, isolated, lacks large rivers, and sits far from any traditional Polynesian or Melanesian voyaging routes. Unlike places such as Norfolk Island or New Zealand, it seems never to have been reached accidentally or deliberately before Europeans.
Permanent human settlement began only in the early 19th century, starting around 1834, when small groups of Europeans (and later mixed families from the Pacific) settled there. The current population descends from those settlers; there is no Indigenous people displaced or absorbed because there were none to begin with.
Ecologically, however, the island did have “natives” in the biological sense: many endemic plants and animals evolved in isolation, which is one reason the island is so carefully protected today.
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You were told something that is often said, but it’s not quite right. Bermuda is a famous example of an uninhabited discovery, but it is by no means the only one.
Lord Howe Island is indeed another clear case: no archaeological traces, no oral traditions, no plausible voyaging route—nothing suggesting prior human presence. In that respect it resembles Bermuda very closely.
There are several other well-established examples. The Falkland Islands were uninhabited when Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Mauritius, Réunion, and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean were all empty before European settlement. Saint Helena in the South Atlantic was likewise uninhabited when the Portuguese found it in 1502. In the Atlantic, the Azores appear to have had no human population before the Portuguese, despite occasional speculative claims to the contrary.
What makes Bermuda stand out is not uniqueness, but timing and documentation. It lies relatively close to major sailing routes, was discovered fairly late (early 16th century), and yet had remained empty—making it rhetorically useful as “the” example in popular history.
So the correct statement would be something like this: Bermuda is the best-known uninhabited discovery, but far from the only one. Lord Howe Island comfortably joins that small but real category.
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Yes—your impression is correct. Lord Howe Island is volcanic, but the volcanism is long extinct.
Geologically, the island is the eroded remnant of a shield volcano that formed on the Lord Howe Rise, probably around 6–7 million years ago. All known volcanic activity ceased millions of years ago, and there is no evidence of any later reactivation. There are no hot springs, fumaroles, seismic swarms, or other indicators of a dormant system. In practical geological terms, it is dead.
What you see in photographs—the steep cliffs, the sharp profiles of Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird, and the narrow shape of the island—is the result of erosion, not recent volcanism. The island was once much larger; wave action and weathering have stripped away most of the original volcanic cone, leaving behind the harder basaltic core. The sheer cliffs on the eastern side are classic signs of long-term marine erosion of an uplifted volcanic structure.
This is quite different from places like Hawaii or Réunion, where volcanism is ongoing or at least recent. Lord Howe Island is better thought of as a geological fossil: a deeply eroded volcanic island that has passed completely out of the volcanic phase of its life cycle.
So “volcanic” describes its origin, not its current state—and you are right to read the landscape as extinct rather than dormant.
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Quite a lot, actually—but all of it is deliberately low-key and nature-centered. Lord Howe is one of those places where doing mostly means moving slowly through an extraordinary setting.
Hiking is probably the signature activity. There are easy coastal walks, but the standout is the guided hike up Mount Gower, which is often described (without much exaggeration) as one of the world’s great day hikes. It’s strenuous, involves ropes in places, and must be done with a licensed guide, but it takes you up into a cloud forest on the summit plateau that feels almost prehistoric. Even people who are not normally “hikers” often say it’s the highlight of their lives.
Diving and snorkeling are major draws. The waters around the island are exceptionally clear, and because the reef is at the meeting point of warm and cool currents, you get a strange and beautiful mix of tropical and temperate species. Snorkeling is easy right off the beaches and lagoon; diving adds caves, drop-offs, and large pelagics. It’s not adrenaline diving—no ripping currents—but it’s rich and serene.
Swimming, kayaking, and glass-bottom boat trips happen mostly in the protected lagoon, which is calm and shallow. Kayaking around the island is popular on good days, and because there’s no jet-ski culture or speedboat chaos, the whole experience stays quiet and contemplative.
Bird-watching is another big one, even for people who don’t normally care about birds. Seabirds nest in large numbers, often very close to paths, and many species show little fear of humans because of the island’s long isolation and protection.
As for camping: no, not in the casual sense. There’s no wild camping, and accommodation is tightly controlled—small lodges, guesthouses, and self-contained units. This is part of how the island protects itself. You visit as a guest, not as someone who spreads out and leaves traces.
And finally, there is a great deal of simply being there: cycling the one main road, sitting on a beach with almost no one else around, watching weather roll in against sheer cliffs, or looking at stars with essentially no light pollution. It’s tourism designed around awe and restraint rather than entertainment.
So yes—hike, swim, dive, paddle—but always within a framework that keeps the island quiet, intact, and slightly otherworldly.
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