Christmas Island - Galapagos of the Indian Ocean
A remarkable travel destination.
One of Australia’s best-kept secrets
A rocky postage-stamp in vast oceanic expanses of the Indian Ocean, Christmas Island is one of Australia’s most far-flung outposts - and certainly not your typical tropical island. Much closer to Asia than mainland Australia, its nearest neighbour is Java (Indonesia), 360 kms distant. The closest Australian mainland town is Exmouth (WA), 1,550 kms away. Offering an experience unlike anything else, Christmas Island is famous for crazy numbers of red crabs, seabirds, whale sharks, spectacular coral reefs - and the balmy tropical temperatures that remain in the mid-20s all year round.
Christmas Island is the summit of an undersea volcano, a seamount that rose dramatically from the deepest point of the Indian Ocean (the Java Trench), 5 kms down. Ringed by a fringing reef, but with almost no coastal shelf, some drop-offs as close as 20 metres to the shore, plunge half a kilometre. The island’s rainforest-shrouded central plateau and 80 km coastline are dominated by an almost continuous sea cliff around the island - occasionally punctuated by shallow bays and small impossibly-pretty sand/coral shingle beaches. Dolly Beach (just one of these hidden gems) was voted 7th best beach in Australia. The island’s marine area is home to untouched corals, shipwrecks, dolphins, sea turtles, and hundreds of species of tropical fish - including the giant trevally, wrasse, butterfly and surgeon fish. Whale sharks are often sighted between November and April.
The island is small, 135 sq kms in area, about 19 kms at its greatest length, and 14 kms wide. About two-thirds (63%) of the island is National Park, covered in thick monsoonal rainforest. Walking trails and boardwalks lead into the forest to waterfalls, clifftop lookouts and beautiful beaches. You can bathe beneath a jungle waterfall in the heart of rainforest - Hughes Dale waterfall is more a rainforest shower than swimming location. There’s a labyrinth of about 30 underground caves on the island. You can walk along a boardwalk as waves whoosh through spectacular blowholes along the shoreline, or swim in a cave.
The Settlement - Flying Fish Cove
Christmas Island’s 2,000-or-so inhabitants present many different ethnicities - a beguiling mix of cultures. Religious beliefs are diverse, but people are particularly tolerant of each others religion. This multi-cultural community, focused largely on the main hub at Flying Fish Cove (pop about 700, near the northeast tip of the island), harmoniously blends Buddhist, Christian, Taoist and Muslim residents. About 65% are of Chinese ethnicity. Languages used are English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Malay - three-quarters of the population are Buddhists. The foundation of this melting pot was laid in the late 19th century, when Britain annexed the island (1888) to lay claim to its valuable phosphate deposits, and migrant workers were brought from overseas to staff the operations.
Island culture is similar to Singaporean culture, which it was formerly a part of - before transfer of sovereignty to Australia in 1958. Flying Fish Cove has a small harbour and container port, small supermarket and several restaurants. There is a mosque, Christian church, Bahai centre and about 20 Chinese temples. A balmy open-air cinema is run by volunteers and screens every Saturday evening, and second Wednesdays. Australia’s northernmost golf course (9 holes) sits among palm trees and tropical rainforest, with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean - coconut/robber crabs try to carry off any stray golf balls, a unique hazard! Surrounded by coral reefs and stinger-free waters as warm as a bath, the island offers many swim, snorkel and dive sites in some of the world’s cleanest waters. You can snorkel over coral gardens from the beach right in front of Flying Fish Cove.
The Famous Crab Migration
The annual crab migration involves some 50 million bright-red resident land crabs - it’s the island’s ‘nowhere else in the world’ attraction. Migration time is usually late October and November, but you’ll see thousands of the crabs carpeting the rainforest floor any time of year. Dry season is July to October, but rest assured, you’ll see crabs - lots of them! They live in shady spots all over the island, and with the first rains of the wet season, make their way from the forests to the sea to spawn, - an amazing spectacle that David Attenborough described as ‘one of the greatest natural wonders on the planet’. Once at the ocean, the mothers release the embryos where they can survive and grow, until they are able to live independently on land. They swarm across roads, streams and beaches, turning them into blankets of red. The time taken to drive anywhere is dependent on how many crabs you have to navigate around, and nudge off the road - sometimes roads have to be closed to traffic.
Red crabs are just one of the island’s 14 land-crab species. It also plays host to the largest population of the world’s biggest land-crab, the primeval-looking coconut crab (known locally as the ‘robber crab’, because of its thieving tendencies). It can grow up to a metre wide, claw to claw, and live for 100 years! Then there are big numbers of the endemic sky-blue Christmas Island blue crab - found nowhere else on earth. The magical wetland known as The Dales has an elevated boardwalk, and is a popular crab hangout.
A World-Class Seabird Rookery
Remarkable birdlife rivals the dazzling array of crabs - rare and unusual birds, hundreds of species. The island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human interference has produced a high level of endemism. World renowned for its seabirds, about 80,000 nest here each year. The most numerous are the red-footed boobies, while the Abbott’s booby is a species that these days breeds exclusively on Christmas Island - about 3,000 breeding pairs. The Christmas Island frigate bird is the rarest of its kind in the world, and critically endangered. The frigates have a huge wingspan (up to 2.5 metres), and the males inflate their bright red throat like a balloon during mating season. Others include the elegant golden bosun (a Christmas Island icon), the melodious Christmas Island thrush, and the hawk owl. Seven of the 13 land birds are endemic to the island. There is a volunteer-run bird rehabilitation centre, where injured and orphaned birds are nursed back to health (with care and fish suppers), before returning to the wild.
In the middle of the rainforest is a research station (the Pink House) where they are breeding the blue-tail lizard, currently extinct in the wild. The centre includes a reptile house and lizard lounge, which is open to the public each Wednesday.
Over A Century Of Phosphate Mining
Phosphate (deposited over centuries as bird manure) has been mined on the island since 1899, originally employing indentured workers from Singapore, Malaya and China. It has been the only significant economic activity. The rich phosphate deposits made the island a target for Japanese occupation during WW2. The Japanese came ashore in 1942 at Flying Fish Cove and occupied the island - 60% of the population were evacuated to prison camps in Indonesia. Only small amounts of phosphate were exported to Japan during occupation, and the British re-occupied the island in 1945. Island sovereignty was transferred by the British from Singapore to Australia in 1958.
Christmas Island displays a curious amalgam of cultures, outstanding natural phenomena, and history - a truly unusual travel experience. Politically, Christmas Island is represented in the Australian parliament by representatives from the Northern Territory, although Western Australia provides most state services. It is subject to the laws of Western Australia, but they are enforced by Federal police! Yes, it’s Australia, but like nowhere else on earth. It just might be the most unusual place you’ll ever visit!!
The Australian Indian Ocean Territories
It’s possible for us to organise a stopover at another external Australian territory, a tropical paradise of white sand beaches fringed by palm trees - the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This little 27 coral-atoll archipelago (only two are inhabited) also lies in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Perth and Sri Lanka - 960 kms from Christmas Island. There are about 500 Coco Malay people, mostly of Muslim faith, resident on the Cocos Islands which were famously owned by the Clunies-Ross family and worked as a copra plantation until 1979. Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are the only two Australian states or territories where European Australians are in a minority. They are collectively the Australian Indian Ocean Territories (since 1997), with a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island.
ADDENDUM
The Controversial Detention Facility
The first thing most Australians associate with Christmas Island is the Federal Government’s controversial immigration detention facility, but it’s fortunately hidden away in a relatively remote corner of the island and quite dissociated from local everyday life. It doesn’t factor much into the lives of this harmonious community.
From the late 1980s, boats carrying asylum-seekers began arriving on Christmas Island - mainly via Indonesia. In 2001, the Australian government stopped the Norwegian ship MV Tampa from disembarking 438 rescued asylum-seekers, and excised Christmas Island from Australia’s migration zone, so that illegal asylum-seekers landing by boat could not apply for refugee status. Under the ‘Pacific Solution’, they were relocated to Manus Island (PNG) and Nauru.
The immigration detention facility was built to accommodate 800 in 2006. In 2010, an illegal asylum-seeker boat struck rocks near Flying Fish Cove and smashed against the cliffs, killing 48. The High Court of Australia then ruled that asylum-seekers on Christmas Island were entitled to Australian legal protection. The Centre was closed in 2018, and re-opened in 2019. It has more recently been used as a quarantine facility for the Covid-19 pandemic.
If you would like to visit Christmas Island or combine it with a trip to the Cocos Keeling Islands, please contact us today on 1800 672 988.
All images on this blog page are courtesy of Chirstmas Island Tourism Association.
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