Beyond the obvious, this Australian island remains an enigma to most

Captain Obvious will tell you three things about Christmas Island. It’s home to one of the planet’s most mind-boggling annual wildlife migrations. It (involuntarily) hosts a much-maligned detention centre which dragged this Australian territory into a prolonged foreign-policy debacle. And, while geographically much closer to Bali than Australia, the only practical way to get here is a four-hour flight from Perth.

The captain might even know that the red-crab curious should visit around the first rains of wet season – November to late January – when tens of millions Gecarcoidea natalis sidle from forest to ocean, get jiggy with it, then loop back again. Some years, their teeny-tiny spawns advance inland like a self-weaving crustacean carpet.

The red-crab curious should visit around the first rains of wet season, from November to late January.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

Beyond that, this remote, splat-shaped Indian Ocean island – part of Australia since 1958 – is a bit of an enigma to many. So, what else is there to know?

First, the answer to the most whispered question: yes, the detention centre is still an active immigration station – out of sight on the island’s north-west – but it is no longer a children’s jail since the Murugappan family from Biloela were released in 2022.

Christmas rises imposingly from the sea like the mountain top it is (technically, the peak of a basalt volcanic seamount), vastly different topography than Australia’s other Indian Ocean territory, Cocos Keeling Islands, a low-lying sandy archipelago, 900 kilometres to the west.

Craggy coastlines and tropical forest: Christmas Island rewards the adventurous.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

From the plane window, CI’s abrupt cliffs and bouffant tangle of tropical forest atop a plateau – which peaks at 361 metres – makes a powerful statement: this is an island that rewards the adventurous traveller.

On the north-east tip, about 1800 people – of Chinese, Malay, Indian and European heritage – cluster into “The Settlement”. Flying Fish Cove is the capital, with Poon San and Silver City (featuring 1970s cyclone-resistant metal houses) “up the hill”.

A takeaway meal from possibly the world’s most remote food truck, Flying Fish Cafe, is a flavoursome first lesson in island demographics. Owner Fauziah Buang’s Malay-style nasi biryani (his mum’s recipe) and queue-causing egg roti reflect the tastes and culture of the cove’s Kampong (village), home also to the Malay Club, seafront halal barbecues and Masjid At-Taqwa mosque.

The jungle-flanked boutique stay, Swell Lodge.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

A hulking, multi-level steel skeleton leans over the shore at the east end of the crescent-shaped cove, a loading facility for the working island’s economic engine: phosphate. Many islanders trace their heritage to the indentured workers who began mining in the late 1800s.

Statistically, Chinese is Christmas Island’s most common heritage, celebrated with murals and manifesting in stalwart restaurants like Chinese Literary Association and Lucky Ho Indo-Chinese in Poon Saan, which is also home to the not-for-profit outdoor cinema ($5 on Saturdays) and coffee hotspot Smash Espresso Bar.

Scuba diving utopias dot the 80-kilometre coastline, best accessed with local operators Wet’n’Dry Adventures and Extra Divers Australia. However, Flying Fish Cove’s jetty is the honeypot for swimmers, snorkelers and free-divers.

With visibility up to 50 metres, the Flying Fish Cove jetty is a snorkel hotspot.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

David Mulheron, from Freedive Christmas Island, says the sheltered cove is ideal to teach the sport because of its steep drop-off (40 metres deep, 100 metres from shore) and exceptional visibility (up to 50 metres). Prime conditions to see huge manta rays or whale sharks, which migrate through the 277,016-square-kilometre Christmas Island Marine Park between November and March.

To explore the unsealed roads of CI’s interior (135 square kilometres of which 63 per cent is national park), you should do three things.

Check the big red signs for crab-related road closures.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

Rent one of the ubiquitous Toyota RAV4s – their vintage and shabby condition is a commentary on the costs and Byzantine logistics of importing cars here. Pick up a free emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) from the police station because there’s no phone reception outside the Settlement’s extremely limited Telstra coverage.

Lastly, check the big red signs for crab-related road closures and be prepared to drive sloth-like (inevitably, you’ll see and smell traffic-smashed crabs; sometimes being feasted on by their brethren). The most famous piece of crustacean management – the 5.5-metre crab bridge – is 10 minutes from town. Road-side skirting tries in vain to marshal the scurrying mass over it.

Christmas Island is a novice-4WDer’s nirvana with copious forest tracks and jungle-fringed, unpatrolled beaches like (my favourites) Greta and Dolly to explore. The fairytale, stalagmite-roofed Grotto and The Blowholes’ ocean-vaporising sci-fi scape are also worth your time.

The Grotto is something out of a fairytale.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

Of the island’s hikes, Anderson’s Dale offers the greatest diversity. The challenging, sometimes slippery west coast trail weaves through rainforest, then beelines down a freshwater creek that’s carved a nether-world through limestone all the way to a spectacular seaside denouement. The wetlands are alive with spaghetti-rooted Tahitian chestnuts trees and a cavalcade of crab species: the red, the feisty blue and the gargantuan, alien-like robber.

For a close encounter with CI’s fabled seabirds, such as the blue-footed Abbott’s booby, head to the national park headquarters on Wednesday for the weekly feeding for rescue birds. Hike to vantage points like Golf Course Lookout (through an old Chinese cemetery) to watch graceful golden bosuns glide in the thermals.

There are millions of red crabs on the island.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

Book ahead through the national parks to see Christmas Island’s greatest comeback story: the blue-tailed skink captive breeding program in the Pink House. The kaleidoscopic little lizard came mighty close to extinction, battling with introduced predators with dystopian names, such as the yellow crazy ant and wolf snake.

Evidence of humanity pops up in the wildest, most unexpected places, including the abandoned casino that catered to Indonesia’s wealthy until 1998 (which is technically off-limits) and a rusty locomotive being swallowed by thick forest near the crab bridge.

Lily Beach is a picturesque, keyhole beach popular with families.Credit: Christmas Island Tourism Association

Nothing plots CI’s human trajectory like its diversity of houses of worship, from Soon Tian Kong Taoist temple at the abandoned South Point settlement, to Zhen Jian Tong Xiu Hui Buddhist temple, featuring crab statues to “help [their] spirits cross to the next plain”.

While there is normal holiday stuff to do – from playing golf to fishing and photography tours – Christmas Island is not for all-inclusive types and floppers-and-droppers. Accommodation options are small and personal, ranging from boutique Swell Lodge to a smattering of quaint retreats, villas and apartments.

A couple of sundowners at Rumah Tinggi Tavern (only open on Saturdays) or Golden Bosun Tavern crisply sums up Christmas Island. You’ll hear locals ruminate on the ups and downs of living in a place where petrol costs three bucks a litre and even finding a hairdresser is a challenge. Yet, as you stare along the dramatic cliffs and out into the Indian Ocean, you won’t need to ask Captain Obvious why they stay and why you made the correct holiday choice.

The details

Fly
Virgin Australia flies a twice-weekly triangle route from Perth – first stop, Cocos Keeling on Fridays, and Christmas Island on Tuesdays. See virginaustralia.com/au/en

Stay
The self-contained Captain’s Lookout studio apartment is a short stroll from restaurants and shops. See christmas.net.au

The writer was a guest of Tourism Australia and Christmas Island Tourism Association.