Which Australian island is for you - Lord Howe or Norfolk?

By Amy Cooper

Lord Howe Island, you had me at no phone reception. In a world where proper unplugging seems an impossible dream, here's a place - and just 600 kilometres off the NSW coast - where you can truly switch off. There's hardly any WiFi. You can get online at the island's museum, but when I went I became so diverted by the awesome comeback kid story of the phasmid, Lord Howe's rare, not-extinct-after-all stick insect, I forgot why I'd wanted internet in the first place. The whole exercise proved I didn't need it anyway.

Lord Howe's wow is defined by what it doesn't have: digital intrusions, snakes, poisonous spiders, crocs, dangerous sharks, stingers. Rats, feral cats and other invasive critters have been eradicated. Best of all, for a very long time Lord Howe didn't have people either. There's no indication of human habitation before the First Fleet discovered this stunning little 14.5 sq km dot in the Pacific in 1788 - and thankfully our imprint remains minimal: no penal misery, no mutinies, no territorial strife or toxic swashbuckling. Lord Howe's history is natural rather than manmade, and a smart decision to cap visitor numbers at 400 at any time has kept it that way.

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The unspoilt environment makes for one big happy honeymoon for thousands of nicer creatures than us. More seabirds breed on Lord Howe Island than anywhere else in Australia, there are 1600 insect species and 1500 types of snails, slugs and shellfish - not to mention turtles, dolphins, whales, seals and sea lions. Thanks to the abundant endemic indigenous flora and fauna, the entire island and its surrounding marine park are a UNESCO World Heritage site giving off major Galapagos vibes. Endangered Providence petrels come when you call them.

Lord Howe has the world's most southerly coral reef, where warm and cool currents and their marine inhabitants converge in a psychedelic underwater garden party. World-renowned dive spots include Erscott's Hole, which has a protected intertidal groyne (I just enjoy saying that sentence) and the towering 551 metre Ball's pyramid, the world's tallest sea stack.

Whether you're communing with the endangered Ballina angelfish in crystal waters or getting high on the island's spectacular Seven Peaks Walk, you'll remain untroubled by crowds. Lord Howe's few humans are easily absorbed by the Kentia forests, swimming and surf beaches, 9 sq km azure lagoon and volcanic peaks.

Cars are scarce too, because you can cycle or walk everywhere, and accommodation - from the upscale nine-suite Capella to the sixth-generation owned Pinetrees - is small and sustainable by necessity. No crime, no locks on the doors - just plenty of blue sea and blissed-out wildlife. It's good to be the island's rarest species.

By Mal Chenu

"Watawieh all yorlye mornen?"

There aren't many places in Australia that speak a different language. OK, parts of Tassie can be a challenge around closing time, but generally, Oz is English all the way. But on Norfolk, they speak Norfuk too. And you will be greeted by the above version of "Hello, how are all you this morning?"

Norfolk Islanders came to this patois by dint of their fascinating history. The OGs were 194 descendants of nine HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian girlfriends, or kidnap victims, depending on whose version you prefer. Norfuk is a blend of 18th-century bogan English and Tahitian, a unique linguistic creation that enabled chief mutineer Fletcher Christian and his mates to chat up the chicks.

The 194 were relocated here in 1856 when they outgrew Pitcairn Island, following Norfolk Island's two periods as a brutal penal colony. I raise all this because a visit to Norfolk is a lot about the history of the place, and there are plenty of ways to step back in time.

Many of the permanent residents today (some say up to half) can trace their roots back to the mutineers - Christian, Evans, Nobbs, Adams, Young, Quintal, McCoy, Buffett and their Polynesian brides. These names are like royalty. Norfolk Island (Norf'k Ailen) is 1400 kilometres east of Australia and about 900 kilometres from Lord Howe Island, whose history consists of a few drawings of birds and whose lingo revolves around whether you want another $34 cocktail.

The absorbing tale of the Bounty is depicted at the Cyclorama at Gallery Guava, a 360-degree, 3.6-metre-high mural artwork recounting the 1789 mutiny and its initially bloody, then pious and reproductively successful aftermath. Museums at the World Heritage-listed convict site at Kingston recount the other aspect of Norfolk's "captivating" history. And captives come to life in daily re-enactments of the life and times, and on ghostly dinner tours, where the "phantom" hosts are scarily realistic and the corned beef is frightful.

I don't mean to make Norfolk sound like a brutality theme park. This is a tropical island paradise, developed yet unspoiled, with enormous tree ferns, hibiscus, sprawling banyan trees and sheer cliffs rising from a rocky coastline, covered head to toe by those eponymous pines. You can surf, play golf, dive and snorkel on the coral reefs, hike, horse ride and mountain bike through the hills, and relax on the beaches, including the crystal-clear waters of Slaughter Bay, where HMS Sirius - the flagship of the First Fleet - was wrecked in 1790. Restaurants are plentiful, you can learn to prepare traditional dishes such as coconut bread, periwinkle pie and green banana dumpling, and the twice-weekly fish fry feast atop the cliff at Puppy's Point is a must.