Ball's Pyramid
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Interesting facts
- Although only about 300 metres wide, the pyramid is some 1,100 metres long, which is why it looks so different side-on and end-on.
- It rises from the Lord Howe Rise, part of Zealandia, a largely submerged continent beneath the south-west Pacific.
- Its cliffs continue below the waves to a shelf about 50 metres deep, separated from Lord Howe Island's shelf by a 500-metre-deep submarine canyon.
- The giant stick insects vanished from Lord Howe Island after the supply ship Makambo ran aground in 1918 and let black rats ashore.
- Climbers on a failed 1964 attempt found and photographed a dead stick insect on the rock, the first hint the species had survived.
- The first ascent came on 14 February 1965, when four members of the Sydney Rock Climbing Club reached the summit.
- Lord Howe Island stick insects grow up to 20 cm long; young ones are green and active by day, while adults turn black and come out at night.
- By 2016 Melbourne Zoo had hatched some 13,000 eggs, and backup populations were set up at zoos in Bristol, San Diego and Toronto.
- In 2014 climbers saw live stick insects in sedges 65 metres below the summit, suggesting the species is more widespread on the rock than once thought.
- The waters around the pyramid are one of the very few places where the rare Ballina angelfish has ever been photographed.
Why it is worth it
Ball's Pyramid is the eroded core of a volcano standing alone in the Tasman Sea, a blade of dark basalt that rises 572 metres straight out of the water yet is only about 300 metres wide at its base. Seen side-on from a boat it looks almost impossibly thin, a jagged spire with a notched crest and sheer grey flanks streaked white by seabirds; seen end-on it becomes a steep pyramid. It is regarded as the tallest volcanic stack in the world, the remnant of a shield volcano that formed some 6.4 million years ago and has since been planed away by the ocean until only the hardest plug remains.
The rock takes its name from Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball of the Royal Navy, after whom it was named in 1788. It was charted in detail in 1853, and the first person known to have set foot on it was the geologist Henry Wilkinson in 1882. Climbers reached the summit only in February 1965, and the pyramid became a coveted objective until the authorities banned climbing in 1982; since 1990 ascents have been possible only under strict conditions with official approval.
The most remarkable chapter of its story is biological. The Lord Howe Island stick insect, a large flightless insect sometimes called a "tree lobster", was last seen on its home island around 1920 and was long presumed extinct. In 2001 researchers climbing the pyramid found a tiny surviving population, a couple of dozen individuals living under a single shrub on a ledge about 100 metres above the sea. Two pairs were taken to the mainland to start a breeding programme, and the colony on the rock became one of the best-known stories of rediscovery in conservation. The pyramid and the surrounding waters belong to the Lord Howe Island group, which is inscribed on the World Heritage list.
Getting there
Ball's Pyramid lies about 20 km southeast of Lord Howe Island, far off the coast of New South Wales; the nearest mainland city, Coffs Harbour, is some 600 km away, with its airport (CFS) at a similar distance. The practical base is Lord Howe Island itself, reached by QantasLink flights from Sydney that take under two hours. From the island, local operators run boat tours out to the pyramid for sightseeing, birdwatching and snorkelling, weather permitting; the sea around it is often rough. Landing on the rock requires special permission and is not part of ordinary visits.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Ball's Pyramid is an uninhabited islet in the Pacific Ocean located 20 kilometres southeast of Lord Howe Island, between Australia and New Zealand. The steep rocky basalt outcrop is the eroded plug of a shield volcano and caldera that formed 6.4 million years ago. It is 572 metres (1,877 ft) high, 1,100 metres (3,609 ft) long and only 300 metres (984 ft) across, making it the tallest volcanic stack in the world.
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