Christmas Island

Christmas Island is the tip of an extinct volcano that climbs more than 4,500 metres from the floor of the Indian Ocean, capped with limestone laid down by ancient coral. Sheer cliffs ring a raised plateau whose highest point, Murray Hill, reaches 361 metres. About 350 km south of Java and some 2,600 km north-west of Perth, the island covers only 135 square kilometres, yet around two thirds of it is national park, most of it tall tropical rainforest that grows right up to the cliff edges.

What makes the island famous is the red crab. Tens of millions of these bright scarlet land crabs live in the forest, and at the start of the wet season, usually in October or November, they leave it almost at once and march to the sea to breed. The females release their eggs into the surf at the turn of the high tide in the last quarter of the moon, so the timing of the migration can be predicted with some precision. For a few weeks roads, gardens and beaches turn red; islanders close roads, put up barriers that steer the crabs into underpasses, and have built a five-metre crab bridge over Murray Road. Weeks later the tiny juveniles come back out of the sea in their own mass march. The spawning also draws whale sharks and manta rays to feed on the larvae offshore.

Beyond the crabs, the island is a sanctuary for seabirds found nowhere else, including the Christmas Island frigatebird and Abbott's booby, as well as the Christmas Island blue crab, which depends on the island's few freshwater streams to breed. The Dales on the west coast, a series of forested gullies listed as a Ramsar wetland, lead down to Hugh's Dale waterfall along a boardwalk path; the Blowholes on the south coast throw spray high above the cliffs when the swell is running; and Dolly Beach is reached through shore-terrace forest. The island owes its English name to Captain William Mynors, who sailed past on Christmas Day 1643; it was annexed by Britain in 1888, mined for phosphate from 1899, and passed to Australia in 1958. Today about 1,700 people live here, most of them around Flying Fish Cove, known locally as The Settlement.

Getting there

Flying Fish Cove, the island's only real town and its anchorage, lies about 9 km from the centre of the island. Christmas Island Airport (XCH) is about 8 km away; flights come from Perth, either direct in about four hours or in about eight hours via the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Yachts can use deep-water moorings at Flying Fish Cove after clearing customs, immigration and quarantine. Many of the best sites, including the Blowholes and Dolly Beach, are reached by four-wheel-drive tracks and short walks.