The Most Magical Place on Earth!

I was lucky enough to get to go to Lord Howe Island for 7 days last week. It is an Australian island in the South Pacific, and is part of the state of New South Wales. It's about 750km northeast of Sydney. LHI is on UNESCO's World Heritage list and is easily the most beautiful place I have ever seen. There are about 300 people who reside on the island. The tourist industry is thriving but accomodation is limited to less than 400 tourists at a time in order to preserve the island. There isn't enough demand to employ a physical therapist, so my clinical instructor and a few colleagues each spend a few weeks each year on the island, so PT can be offered multiple times during the year. There is one doctor on the island. His salary is subsidized by the government because there's often very little for him to do, especially when peak season is over. Other health care professionals (including dentists) go to the island for a week or so at a time to offer their services, but only the physician is there full-time. Luckily for us, not many people needed physical therapy while we were there, so I only ended up working 1.5 days :)
We flew out of Port Macquarie in a tiny, tiny plane. I got to be the co-pilot! The landing was fun, we came in sideways and almost missed the runway due to windy conditions. Here I am with our plane, safe and sound after landing:
The snorkeling at LHI is incredible. It is home to the world's most southern coral reef. The closest beach was about a 3 minute walk from our house, and the reef was about a 3 minute swim from the shore. We went snorkeling every day and spent time exploring each beach, plus 7 different areas of reef on a glass bottom boat tour. I snorkeled with sharks (small ones), turtles, eels, stingrays, and heaps of different fish and coral. The fish were so bright and colorful, as was the reef. I saw hard and soft coral, plus lots of different formations of coral. The weather was amazing the whole trip, but especially perfect for snorkeling the first 4 days. The water was quite warm (about 26C, which is nearly 80 F). We had to wear spring suits for snorkeling, as the water is colder the deeper you go, plus after spending a few hours in the water it can get a bit chilly. Nina & I after our first day snorkeling at Ned's Beach:
Clearly this is a good look for me:
Middle Beach:
Bushwalking on Transit Hill:
Paradise!
I am so fortunate to have traveled here, and to have such beautiful weather the whole time. I will never forget this trip! Overlooking Blinky Beach (love the name!):