Christmas Island is an hour behind Perth so we woke up at some stupid time and fought to squeeze an extra hour or two of sleep. We were on holiday dammit! But that didn’t last long. We got up, made breakfast, and head to the visitor centre to buy postcards and get the low down on what’s good to see.

When I was looking at Christmas Island and what it had to offer, I thought six days was going to be too long. After talking to the woman at the centre, I realized there was a lot more to do than just look at crabs. This was despite hearing from some other visitors that they we bored and ready to go home after three days. Nuts to them!

Loaded up with activities and maps, we went back, collected Voey, and set off for Ethel and Lily Beaches. Both weren’t too far a journey in the car. We went up one steep hill that the Rav4 struggled with, only to stop near the top to take photos of the many red crabs that were scuttling across the road and heading into the forest.

Ethel and Lily Beaches

Driving here at this time is a bit like a video game, especially when you also factor in blue crabs and robber crabs. Luckily the migration has slowed so you only get a few on the roads as opposed to thousands, which means the roads are closed. I think my crush count has been minimal.

Christmas Island isn’t the place to go if you want pristine, long beaches. There aren’t many spots where you can get into the water and where you can, they are small and have a lot of swell. Ethel Beach had a lot of rocks, hermit crabs (!!!), and some nice sand. I took a dip, and then took photos of the red-footed boobies perched in the trees above. Their little red feet curl around the branch. They’re very cute.

A short drive later we arrived at Lily Beach which had a beautiful little rocky bay that you can sit in (though I didn’t) where fish come in and swim around you. Go out too far, however, and the swell gets big and rough. Glen, Voey and Justin stayed on the beach while I went for a walk along a boardwalk.

It cuts through part of the coastal forest and I saw giant grasshoppers, red crabs, my first robber crab, island thrushes, and, at the lookout at the end, more red-footed boobies. The wildlife viewing here is excellent.

Reptile Rescue

We went for lunch at Smash Cafe then dropped Glen back at the accommodation while the rest of us went to Pink House for a tour of the lizard breeding facility. I knew some of the story of the Christmas Island blue-tailed skinks from working at Perth Zoo but did not know that in the past 11 years they had bred thousands of skinks and geckos AND even released some of them into soft release sites on Christmas Island and islands in Cocos Islands. 

The tour went for about an hour. We learned about the program, the threats, the rehabilitation and releases, as well as getting to see the animals themselves. I’d love to work on the interpretation for the place but being an outpost of the national park system with a very small number of visitors each year, money is not forthcoming.

We bush-bashed for a bit but got stymied as roads were either blocked by crabs, fallen trees, or road closure signs. We zoomed back into town, dodging more red crabs on the roads, and relaxed at the accommodation for a while.

From the tour we went to Grants Well based on a recommendation that we could pick passionfruit and limes that were growing wild there. We couldn’t find them but luckily Jess from Swell Lodge was there so I asked. The passionfruit were all gone but the limes were growing. We sent Voey up a ladder (Justin and I had to hold it up) to pick about eight. Later when I cut them open, they were all dry as stones.

Because I get antsy and FOMO, we later went to a place called The Sitting Room, near Historic House. It’s a rocky ledge on the edge of the coast where concrete has been poured over the jagged rocks to make seats. Black crabs scuttled into the water at our approach. The ocean crashes across the rock below and it’s impossible not to think of the many refugees who drowned on the coast, not far from where we were.

In the evening we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant that was closing after that night for the Christmas period. We ordered a lot, ate a lot, then went to the supermarket to get an icecream before going home. Our first full day was over.