Humpty Mick’s Cafe
Lord Howe Island
Ph (02) 6563 2287
This is the only other cafe option on the island apart from Thompson’s General Store which only serves coffee in paper cups. Humpty Mick’s doubles as a kind of flash restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is also a bakery producing breads, pastries, cakes and slices of reasonable quality.
I gaze out through the glass doors past a screen of noble Norfolk Island pines and to the azure waters of the lagoon, to the magnificent mass of rock that is Mt. Gower, the tallest if the twin peaks on this dot of an isle on the South Pacific. I sit at a table set squarely on a hardwood floor. There are ten other customers on this late Sunday morning in May. My Lavazza long black is hot, maybe lacking in some punch, but acceptable by Melbourne standards.
White-painted walls, beige umbrellas, comfy cane chairs, chrome and stainless steel. Yep, my kind of place.
I have been here an hour and not one single car have I seen. A rack of bikes is out past the lone telephone booth. The Co-Op over the road is open. A three year old (with mother!) pushes a tiny tot in a pusher down the middle of the road.