This tiny island is home to some of Australia’s most beautiful hikes

Australia has no lack of islands with great hiking trails, whether it’s Hinchinbrook, K’gari or Maria Island, to name a few, but the best island walking might well be on one of its far-flung shards of land.

Sitting 600 kilometres off the NSW coast, Lord Howe Island is just 11 kilometres in length but, wrapped in reefs and weighted down by the bulk of Mount Gower, this volcanic remnant somehow packs in a wealth of trails. None are long, some are tough, all are beautiful.

Mount Gower has long dominated hiking thoughts on the island, with the 875-metre peak regularly touted as one of Australia’s best, and toughest, day hikes. But it’s not alone in its appeal. There are trails right across the crescent-shaped island, with the standout walks at its either ends – the mountainous south around Mount Gower, but also across its hilly north.

My plan on arrival is to save the challenge of Gower for last, starting instead in the north, where Malabar Ridge rises off the sands of Ned’s Beach.

It’s just a kilometre up the ridge to Malabar Hill, but it’s a step into another world. Staghorn ferns grow directly out of boulders, the water below is so blue that it could be glazed, and it’s a point of the island where birdlife is plentiful – I hear one islander joke that looking for the tail feathers of red-tailed tropicbirds is what passes for shopping on Lord Howe.

From Malabar Hill, trails continue along Lord Howe’s northernmost edge, first atop the cliff edge to a prominent incisor of rock known as Kim’s Lookout and then down to North Bay, backed by Lord Howe’s emblematic Kentia palms, which fringe the beach and its reefs like a plantation.

Between these northern hills and the sharp southern rise of Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird, Lord Howe flattens into a virtual isthmus, itself sketched with trails through forest and to beaches. But even as I climb above North Bay to the tip of low Mount Eliza, the furthest point on the island from Mount Gower, it’s the two high peaks that dominate the view.

Next to them the next morning, I meet local guide Dean Hiscox, owner of Lord Howe Environmental Tours. Before climbing Gower the next day, I have one more hike to ready me.

“Goat House Cave is the walk I send people to if they’re not sure how they’ll go on Gower,” Dean says.

Reaching the “cave”, which is an overhang at the base of 777-metre Mount Lidgbird’s high cliffs, requires a steep climb, assisted at times – as on Gower – by pitches of rope. It’s taxing, but not daunting, and soon we’re sitting out in the overhang, looking over the island as it stretches away long and thin below us.

“Geologically, Lord Howe is a lot like Hawaii,” Dean says. “You could tack it onto the end of the Hawaiian islands and it would fit right in.”

A day later, I’m back at the foot of this twin pair of peaks, now heading for the highest point: Mount Gower’s summit. This commanding mountain can be climbed only with a guide, and I’ve joined a Sea to Summit Expeditions trip led by Jack Shick, a fifth-generation islander who has been leading hikes on Gower since 1992.

“I’ve climbed it 2400 times, give or take a couple,” he says.

The walk begins along the coast, but after 20 minutes comes the declaration of doom: we’re heading up. Donning helmets for a traverse beneath Gower’s ominous cliffs, we begin the climb. The toughest moments come beyond a saddle in the main ridge and include 20 roped sections, hauling ourselves up by hand and foot.

It’s steep, exposed and scrambly, but it’s short and sure, and four hours after setting out, we rise onto Gower’s summit plateau. It’s like stepping into Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World, with every tree and leaf slathered in moss and lichen fed by the cloud that so regularly settles over the peak.

Atop the mountain, we pause for lunch, joined by currawongs and the island’s ubiquitous wood hens, calling at us like squeaky wheels. “That’s the most terrifying hike I’ve ever done,” says fellow hiker Lindsey.

Now there’s just the little business of getting down.

THE DETAILS

HIKE
Guided Mt Gower hikes are operated by Sea to Summit Expeditions and Lord Howe Environmental Tours. The eight- to 10-hour hike costs from $170 and trips run Monday and Thursday (Sea to Summit Expeditions) and Wednesday and Friday (Lord Howe Environmental Tours). See lordhoweislandtours.net, lordhoweislandtours.com

STAY
Leanda Lei offers central accommodation, with free bikes for getting around the island and to trails. From $400 a night. See leandalei.com.au

FLY
Qantas flies to Lord Howe from Sydney, while Eastern Air Service flies from Port Macquarie, Newcastle and the Gold Coast. See qantas.com.au, easternairservices.com.au

The writer travelled as a guest of the Lord Howe Island Tourism Association. See lordhoweisland.info