Bloke Returned From Lord Howe Genuinely Shocked To Realise It's Actually Worth It

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A local man has spoken of his skepticism this morning as he recounted the weeks and months before travelling to Lord Howe Island, but had paid for the trip in full.

"It's not like it's a big secret that it's not cheap to go to Lord Howe, it's pretty much on par with going to Europe. Probably more expensive, even," said Sam Dollarhyde, a local grazier who was sold the holiday by his wife Danica for their anniversary.

"When our travel agent gave us the bottom line, you can bet my forehead wrinkled and I exhaled quite sharply. We're talking used tractor prices here. And not for a clapped out grey fergie. More like a 6620 that's had an easy life slashing medians for a drought-stricken shire,"

"But Christ alive, you're only on this spinning hellrock in the Milky Way once so I tapped my card, put the pin in and got the big smooch. That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

But the cost of it didn't escape or venture too far from Sam's mind.

He said his own mental scale of spending shifted to that holiday.

"I used to think of things in Landcruisers. Like a new shed, that's about half a Landcruiser to two landcruisers, dependent on size and location. New bull? Yeah, I can get five bulls to the Landcruiser around here. But now. It's the holiday."

The 55-year-old melanoma collector said all the mental anguish and disappointment of parting with some hard-fought cheddar slipped away once the hostie underarmed him a can of Stone & Wood Pacific Ale, the offical holiday beer of the nation.

"When you have a Stonie after work, it tastes like shit. Can't be drinking that after you've been in the yards working cattle. No way. Seriously, try it. After a hard day, go have a Stone & Wood Pacific Ale. Shame job. But on holidays, mate, put that shit in a drench gun and call me bah bah black sheep!"

"I had one of those on the plane to Lord Howe out of Sydney and I was like fuck me, it's go time and I'm on holidays away from those fuck arse cattle of mine."

As the island came into view, Sam said he was impressed.

"Yeah, I was impressed. It looked good," he explained.

"But the real shock and realisation came when we got picked up by some bonghead in a Mini Moke and taken to the hotel, he offered me a roadie. And yeah, there was fuck all people around and we just had a great time. They even have a golf club there. Dannie went for a hike and I got wankered on the beach. They brought me lunch as well, on the beach,"

"Rinse and repeat for a week and then back to Betoota. I reckon we'll go back."

More to come.