Lord Howe Island: Why Australia's island paradise is the best 'overseas' destination

The doctor who greets us at Lord Howe Island's tiny airport terminal has dreadlocks and she's barefoot with sand crusted on her legs and a swimsuit under her shirt. She cheerily apologises for these informal touches before taking our temperatures and asking us to take a few deep breaths. Then we're free to grab our bags and board the bus to Ocean View, an apartment complex still run by descendants of the Wilson family, who have owned it since its beginnings in 1876.

The island has only recently re-opened after months of hibernation brought about by COVID-19 and it's now one of the few "overseas" destinations available to Australian holidaymakers. Even so, you could never get lost in the crowd.

There are only 350 residents and no more than 400 visitors are allowed at any one time. The islanders take their role as protectors of Lord Howe's status as a UN World Heritage site very seriously. Also on duty at the airport are Sebbi and Zuma, a pair of biosecurity detection dogs. Mild-mannered spaniels in yellow fluoro capes with their own Instagram accounts, they have been trained to sniff out any trace of foreign soil or vegetation on travellers' shoes or in their luggage.

We're here to draw and paint but we're staying at the business end of the island as Ocean View is just a short walk from what passes as the main street. And the local restaurant, where we eat all our meals, happens to be opposite the cocktail bar. It's run by the physiotherapist, whom I spot on its balcony one morning treating a patient with an injured wrist. At night, he becomes the bartender, adept at the creation of Margaritas, Mai Tais and something highly dangerous called a Mexican Car Crash.

Everybody seems to have at least three jobs and it's not long before you're feeling as if you have wandered into a tropical transplant of a British village sitcom – an Antipodean Death in Paradise without the fatalities. But nature is what Lord Howe is all about.

A temperate current flowing from north Queensland has endowed it with the world's southernmost coral reef and I have happy memories of an earlier trip when I snorkelled at Comet's Hole, celebrated for the depth of its coral reef wall. This time I try Ned's Beach, with its abundant fish life, and Old Settlement beach, where I'm disappointed not to spot one of the bay's sand turtles.

Birdsong keeps you company wherever you go. The wedge-tailed shearwater has a ghostly cry which sets us wondering about the mournful state of its emotional life as we walk home from dinner each night and white terns wheel above, brightening the morning with their chorus for those energetic enough to take on the grassy hill behind Ocean View.