CHRISTMAS ISLAND PART 2
I'm afraid that having holidays on tropical islands has distracted me from doing regular blog posts.
I'm going to cheat with this one and just add the content from the Holiday Newsletter I've already sent out to friends.
Christmas Island Newsletter
February 2026
It may seem somewhat unusual for someone like me to head off to an environment that is designed for people who love hiking, love nature, love diving. But I do like gentle walks and manageable nature and snorkelling, so the idea of a week on Christmas Island and another on Cocos (Keeling) Islands for a summer break and a reward for Sebastian completely his PhD seemed like a good one. And of course, Sebastian does like hiking and nature.
Christmas Island (known to the locals as CI) is a series of contradictions.
While named Christmas Island by an English captain sailing past in 1643, the bigger celebrations are likely to be Chinese New Year with 20 temples scattered across the island or even Ramadan with 16% of population being of Malay Muslim heritage (compared to 22% Chinese).
Both the Chinese and the Malay communities were used as indentured labour in the mining of phosphate here since the 1880s but this didn’t necessarily bring them closer together. The Malays mainly live in the Kampong area of Settlement down near the harbour whereas the Chinese live in the Poon Saan area up on the hill.
Another contradiction is that this originally uninhabited island has been exploited for it’s phosphate with forests ripped out but now 63% of it has been declared a park with reforestation happening and mining limited to existing stockpiles.
On the one hand, it’s a tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean but on the other, there are very few beaches and they are tiny, hard to access and can be challenging to swim in. The island is the tip of a mountain and is surrounded for the most part by sharp rocky cliffs.
On the one hand, there are feral cat traps all over the island, with glittery CD-Roms and tinsel to attract the cats that have decimated bird and reptile populations but on other hand the Malay Muslim community keep and revere cats because Mohammad owned one. However, as no new cats have been bought to the island since 2010, even the tagged and domestic cats will eventually disappear.
It’s a world full of swooping sea birds (and flying foxes) and feral chooks. The latter aren’t as noisy as those on the Cook Islands but some of the birds have even nastier habits. There are three types of frigate birds on CI and we met some up close, including 36 year old Erica. They do fish but their preferred tactic is to collectively harass other birds getting them to drop or even regurgitate fish. The skies are full of these birds with their forked tails gliding in thermals waiting for dinner to arrive.
Mind you, finding dinner for visitors, particularly during the low season, can be challenging. I estimate that there were about 20 tourists on the island including us and even that might be an exaggeration. Not surprisingly, there were only a couple of dinner options and they took it in turns to be open. For example, the Flying Fish Cafe, aka a food van near the mosque, only served dinner on Mondays and Fridays. The Tracker’s Tavern, a gloried tin shed in a small industrial estate, doesn’t have a chef. A different local cooks each night but if they are away or not well or simply can’t be bothered, there’s no dinner. On the night we did get a meal there, the choice was a BLT burger or chicken wings. Obviously not halal on Saturdays! There is apparently a nightclub but we didn’t bother and there used to a brothel but we didn’t discover whether that still existed or whether it had gone the way of the opium den, closed in 1932. We did engage in one night of entertainment, a bargain at $5 per person: the outdoor cinema and the light hearted joy of Zootopia 2.
So how did we fill out days? I’d found an itinerary on what to do on the island and with the exception of a couple of walks we did most of the only activities available to do. If you want the details:
Put simply, each day involved a swim - snorkelling off a boat, snorkelling off a jetty, or lounging in a pool. Each day involved a drive (sometimes 4WD), a walk through the jungle and an ocean vista. Sebastian is always our leader on such walks because he’s got an amazing eye for animals and birds whereas I’m forever looking at my feet to make sure I don’t trip over roots or holes. Mind you, there was no chance of missing the crabs. It wasn’t the red crab migration season where roads have to be closed and people have to walk in front of cars to sweep them aside. Instead, one just had to drive carefully around them and make enough noise in the forest to ensure they escaped from underfoot. I have to confess that the Robber crabs, in a glorious array of different colours from gold to blue, are the biggest I’ve ever seen. They make a fascinating contrast to the tiny iridescent blue tailed skinks that we only saw by visiting a research station.
This feels like an island that should have ghosts or, at the very least, cries of pain and unhappiness. The ghosts of the indentured labourers who never escaped either debt or the island. The ghost of Gordon Bennett who helped the workers unionise but the result was the mine closed (for a while) with a devastating impact on the community. The ghosts of those who drowned on the SIEV 221 when it hit the sharp rocks almost opposite where we were staying. The cries of those who sought refugee in Australia but found only the jungles of Christmas Island. But somehow, nature reclaims the graves and the old settlements and even the old mine sites and the sound of water soothes the tears.
In between nature, there are the people. The Muslim Malay women in their black scarves. The fly in fly out folk working for the phosphate mine or the Australian government. The Chinese with their temples at every corner preparing for New Year with red lanterns. The people who came for a visit and then stayed for 10 or 20 years. And then there are the people who aren’t here. The owners of the tavern across the road who have given up. The person who owns the only bakery in town so there was no bread in the supermarket until Saturday. The empty detention centre that used to house 5,000 people (compared to a local population of 1,700).
It’s a world of empty buildings. The resort with its casino which was only opened for 5 years in the 1990s until Indonesia stopped direct gambling flights to the island. The huge ship loading crane which had stood unused for 20 years because after its initial operation, workers declared it too dangerous. The empty tourist accommodation because it’s the low season. Even the kiosk at the airport where someone who wants to run it has been waiting for 2 years for the government to issue a lease.
But it is home to 100 million crabs!
So did we enjoy our stay? Yes. Low key. Relaxed. Balmy. There are no resorts. Limited shopping and entertainment and food choices. But its people are welcoming and its landscape unique.
On to even smaller world: Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Population 593.
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