There’s no Wi-Fi at the overnight lodge. But compensation for that is more than adequate on this five-day guided hike.
I hadn’t realised until after I booked our seven-day, Seven Peaks walking holiday that there would be no internet, no TV and no mobile phone coverage at the lodge hosting us. Although I have come armed with a downloaded box set and dozens of podcasts, I am gripped with FOMO.Then there’s the weather. Strong winds can prevent flights from landing on the island’s short runway, in which case the plane turns around and goes home.
Only 400 visitors per night are allowed to join the 445 residents of the island. During one of our daily hikes, we meet one of these islanders, Gilly, a 77-year-old descendant of one of the first families to settle here in the mid-1800s. In 1980, he was among the group of local men who rescued a clutch of near-extinct woodhens – a flightless bird that lives only on Lord Howe Island.
Pinetrees general manager Denis Corcoran delights in showing guests examples of how the lodge, the largest business on the island, is reducing the 1125 tonnes of emissions it measured as its baseline in 2018.
Residents have been encouraged to switch to electricity since the Lord Howe Island Board installed a solar array and battery system that now powers 80 per cent of the island’s needs. And while Pinetrees is on a path to embrace this technology of the future, there’s other technology it prefers to leave behind.“Without Wi-Fi and mobile phones, people talk,” Corcoran says. “It’s particularly pertinent when you see families interact. It’s a genuine excuse to disconnect.
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