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When seen on the
map, Ball's Pyramid, part of the Lord Howe
Island Marine Park, is represented by a small
tiny black dot seemingly lost in the vast ocean
but you will get a shock of your life when you
come face-to-face with this natural wonder. Ball's Pyramid is an
obelisk so tall that it looks as if it is
touching the sky. This volcanic stack is more
than five hundred and fifty meters tall despite
measuring only four hundred meters across at its
base. This isolated pillar of rock thrusting up
from the southern Pacific Ocean is listed as the
highest rock pinnacle in the world.
 Henry Lidgbird Ball
of the HMS Supply was the first person to discover
this giant-sized rock in 1788 and subsequently
named it after himself. According to his
journals, he has never seen such a strange
structure existed in the middle of the waters.
At the same time, he also named the
largest island in the chain as Lord Howe Island
after Lord Howe, Britain's First Lord of the
Admiralty.
Lord Howe Island was a forested
paradise when Ball and his crew first set foot
on the island but by 1834, the island had been
settled with people who made a living from trade
with passing ships but fortunately, Ball's
Pyramid, a remarkable natural wonder,
Photo: Ball's Pyramid southeast of Lord
Howe Island, remains untouched.
Located about seven
hundred kilometers in the northeast direction of
Sydney, off Australia's east coast, this
enormous sea-stack reveals its secrets not from
the sky but from under the sea. What you will
see in the waters are brightly colored fish
swimming round rock columns and under arches
which is actually a plateau of volcanic rock
since the grand Ball's Pyramid is a crumbling,
long-extinct volcano with only its peak above
the water whereby it is one of a series of
volcanoes that became inactive seven million
years ago. Since then, the sea has not stopped
pounding on the intrusive landmass that forced a
way up through its depths. The rocks has been
eroding every day, so it is not surprising to
find out that only three per cent of the
original landmass is left.
Lord Howe Island has
the most southerly coral reef since it is the
place where warm tropical southward currents
meet the cool water of the sub-Antarctic. There
are over four hundred varieties of tropical and
cooler-water fishes seen in the reef's nooks and
crannies with the rare double-header wrasses
making their home here. One of the main reasons
why it is difficult getting to Ball's Pyramid is
that there are no coves and beaches for boats to
land. Known as Australia's Everest, it seemed
destined to remain unconquered until Bryden
Allen and John Davis extraordinary feat in 1965.
Ball's Pyramid has since been included under the
UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is a very
popular spot for climbers looking for a
challenging climb.
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