Advertisement Australian travellers yearning for adventure after almost one year of international border closures can visit an extraordinary cloud forest hovering over a tiny island, without leaving New South Wales. The rare phenomenon on Lord Howe Island, a stunning volcanic isle which lies roughly 600km east of the NSW coast, is created by a balanced ecosystem that causes clouds to float directly over mountaintops, shrouding peaks in cotton-like wisps. The cloud caps, which hang between the 875-metre summit of Mount Gower and lower Mount Lidgbird during summer months, form when air travelling across the ocean collects invisible water vapour, which collides with the mountains it rises before cooling and condensing into clouds.