The sustainable efforts behind the transformation of Christmas Island

Christmas Island is seeking a more sustainable future, with its first commercial food forest, dedication to marine rubbish clean ups and novel efforts to safeguard its red crabs; all on island initiatives worth celebrating.

On Christmas Island this year, the price of a single imported lettuce hit $20, but there’s no catastrophic floods or sudden inflationary pressures driving the eye-watering cost. “Lettuce has been $12 to $15 for the past decade or more," says regenerative farmer, Mark Bennett. He’s sitting across from me in the dark, as fairy lights strung in banana palms cast a warm glow over his first long-table dinner. On the inaugural Indian Ocean Fest menu are snake beans, sweet potato leaves and passionfruit, all sourced from his organic Hidden Garden Sustainable Farm. At first glance, it might not seem like a big deal, but for the remote Australian Territory, where up to 98 per cent of the food is imported, supplying home-grown produce is a seismic shift from the norm.

An aerial view of Flying Fish Cove. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

Solving the food security problem on Christmas Island

“Food security has always been an issue here," says Mark, who moved to the volcanic dot with his parents when he was two years old. Supplies arrive fortnightly via freight plane and six-weekly ship drops, the latter at the whim of storms and swell. The unsustainable food miles, fraught accessibility and high produce prices have long troubled him. “I thought, with everything humans are able to achieve, we must be able to solve this," he says.

With a background in mine site rehabilitation, Mark set about slowly nurturing the soil across part of a 22-hectare former mine site. It’s taken 10 years, with more than a few fall-to-the-knees-and-cry moments, but he’s getting ever closer to his dream of creating a sustainable, commercially productive food forest fed by composted island waste. “Why should we have to eat dinner where all the food on our plate travels a minimum of 1500 kilometres?" he says.

Mark Bennett, of Hidden Garden Sustainable Farm. (Image: Fleur Bainger)

Flying to this Jurassic-like, equatorial isle that’s geographically closer to Indonesia than it is Australia, is a case in point. At the airport just days before, I watch homebound islanders push baggage trolleys stacked with polystyrene eskies bearing fruit, vegetables and cheese towards check-in. As friendly as country folk, one strikes up a conversation and advises me to bring my own next time.

Mark, the son of a lauded union leader who fought for marginalised islanders’ work rights, plans disruption. He’s growing cacao, papaya, coffee, avocado, eggplant and pumpkin. There are herbs and spices and 12 different varieties of tropical fruit trees. He’s already sold lettuces for $4 each, free of by-the-kilo freight fees. Organic eggs, chickens, goats and sheep are all on Mark’s future wish list. “In my view, we need to return to a decentralised system of food production where local, smallplot production is favoured for its food security attributes," he says.

“We want to be a showcase to other communities. If you work together, you can create something that will be on the plate of future generations, and they’ll know that it comes from their land."

Protecting the newly-declared marine parks

Sustainability might just be Christmas Island’s salvation. Long associated with the incarceration of asylum seekers and the dusty industrial grunt of 134 years of phosphate mining, the outpost is building a new reputation. In March 2022, the federal government created a France-sized pair of marine parks encircling Christmas and the nearby Cocos Keeling Islands. Recognising its rich biodiversity values, it protects this rolling slab of Indian Ocean from illegal fishing and mining.

Dive below the surface on Christmas Island. (Image: Fleur Bainger)

The declaration coincides with efforts to stem the flow of marine rubbish washing up on the island’s idyllic shores and contain terrestrial threats such as the crazy ants crushing the isle’s famous red crab population. Tourism is emerging as a key post-mining employment option. Bringing it all together is the new, week-long Indian Ocean Fest that ran an eco-focused itinerary in June. There’s a sense the tide is turning, and with it comes a new identity.

Merrial Beach is Christmas Island’s smallest beach. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

Exploring the natural wonders of Christmas Island

Look beyond the Detention Centre gates and Christmas Island stacks up as a valid nature destination. Sixty-three per cent of it is national park, riddled with rainforest and, at last estimate, some 180 million red crabs. They, the football-sized robber crab (so-called for its penchant for swindling anything it can get its claws on) and 20 other crab species make it the most significant land crab island in the world.

More than 20 land crab species live on Christmas Island including the fascinating robber crabs. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

Rare bird species synonymous with the Galapagos – booby and frigatebirds – coast on toasty thermals like circling pterodactyls. Endangered sea turtles nest on the beaches and whale sharks, manta rays and spawning bluefin tuna swim in the converging Indian and Pacific oceans. Everything is in constant motion.

The regal red-footed booby. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

The black rock first emerged from the ocean some 60 million years ago. It’s the tip of a 5000-metre submarine volcano, which sits 361 metres above sea level. On many of the island’s edges, slabs of basalt rock are topped with pinnacles, the spiky formations sharp as a knife.

The brown booby is another rare bird species on the island. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

What to expect on Christmas Island

When I first arrive on Christmas Island, the collision of ancient raw wilderness and weathered civilisation feels somewhat confronting. Dozens of roosters and chooks roam wild along roadsides edged with rampant jungle. Blocky apartment buildings seemingly transplanted from the Soviet Era are showered with satellite dishes that face upwards like a field of sunflowers. A call to prayer rings out over loudspeakers as I pass lion sculptures fronting cream-coloured houses covered in a sponge effect of tropical mould.

Flying Fish Cove is Christmas Island's main settlement

Flying Fish Cove is Christmas Island’s most popular beach and main settlement. (Image: Tobias Friedrich)

The working phosphate mine dominates Flying Fish Cove, its cranes, conveyor belt corridors and jetty reaching out like a steel octopus, impossible to ignore. There’s a smattering of street art, temples laden with offerings, and a loud red sign declaring which roads are closed during the annual red crab migration. A cafe serves laksa for breakfast with condensed milk coffee, while the bakery sells curry puffs alongside sliced bread. The intermingling of Malay, Chinese and Australian cultures creates a fascinating sensation of things being familiar, yet foreign.

The intermingling of Malay, Chinese and Australian cultures is evident in the island’s cuisine. (Image: Fleur Bainger)

I cross to the island’s southern side, where ocean blowholes sound like a 747 gearing up for take-off. A track slices through one of the island’s healthiest rainforests. Guided by Parks Australia staff, I stop at a towering strangler fig tree. Red crabs peer from its muscular buttress roots, moving slowly into the crevasses as I approach. All around, the forest floor is bare, which I discover, surprisingly, is how it’s meant to be. The crabs act as cleaners, nibbling away leaf litter, fruit and understorey plants. The sweeping openness here is starkly different to the thick growth I’ve seen elsewhere.

A giant strangler fig on Christmas Island

Admire the intricate latticework of a giant strangler fig amid the rainforest. (Image: Fleur Bainger)

The crabs vs the yellow crazy ants

Threatened species manager Alexia Jankowski says the culprits are yellow crazy ants, which were accidentally introduced just over a century ago. “They’re one of the biggest threats on the island," she says, responsible for killing tens of millions of land crabs since they formed super colonies in the 1980s. Those “multi-queened, thriving masses" are now believed to stretch across more than 400 hectares on the island. The ants blind and immobilise the crabs with formic acid, triggering a domino effect on the island’s ecosystem. Parks Australia has been baiting the forest perimeter, but Alexia says it’s an unsustainable solution.

“Staff are walking along lines that are 100 metres apart and treating this forest for the ants," she says. “It’s very successful for a period of time, but it’s got to be ongoing." Two decades of widespread aerial bait dropping and biological control has helped, but longer-term solutions are needed. “In the future we will be trialling flying a drone for dropping adhesive baits into the tree canopy, where they will stick, ready for the ants to take," says Alexia. “We’re hoping this means the bait doesn’t get taken by other species, and that no creatures are hurt from the drop."

Fighting the threat of marine debris

Crazy ants aren’t the only threat being managed. I arrive at the road junction of the island’s most iconic beaches, Greta and Dolly, where piles of collected rubbish stare back at me. Distressing volumes of what’s termed ‘marine debris’ are pushed by trade winds to collect on some of Christmas Island’s coves and beaches – another blight that the place has to bear, through no fault of its own. At Dolly’s boardwalk entrance, a sign states that 39 per cent of the debris comes from foam insulation and fishing buoys.

Dolly Beach is fringed by coconut palms and boasts a wonderful coral reef. (Image: Alamy)

A 25-minute adventure through pandanus, palms and mangroves and I pop out to what the locals call their ‘Robinson Crusoe beach’. Coconuts and volcanic rock meet white sand frequented by turtles, but at my toes are plastic bottle lids, thongs and cigarette lighters.

Tall mangrove thicket features on the trail to Dolly Beach. (Image: Fleur Bainger)

A team from the not-for-profit organisation Tangaroa Blue Foundation (TBF) is on the ground, bagging as much as they can carry back along the boardwalk – the only way in and out. Their daily hauls can weigh up to 1000 kilograms, which they then sort and painstakingly catalogue so they can track the origin of the waste and lobby industry and government to change current practices.

“We enter the data into the Australian Marine Debris Database, which is the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere," says WA project coordinator, Casey Woodward. “The information is used to create source reduction plans, which the community integrates and then we monitor the success of the plan."

The team from the not-for-profit organisation Tangaroa Blue Foundation (TBF) is on the ground.

Hope is on the horizon

TBF has implemented more than 300 source-reduction plans across Australia, targeting everything from cigarette butts to bait-box packing straps. It has been helping manage Christmas Island’s plastics problem since 2009, with hopes that its efforts will become more solutions than bandaids. “When you consider that 99 per cent of the marine debris that washes up on Christmas Island is of international origin, it adds another layer of complexity to the strategy," says Casey. “It requires collaboration on an international level. With the United Nations Environment Programme agreeing to implement a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution by 2024, hope is on the horizon."

Perhaps that’s how it feels for the entire island. With debate continuing to rage about the future of the detention centre and a plan to drop lettuce prices for good, Christmas Island can at last hope to be known for what it truly is: a tropical wilderness deserving of sustainable survival.

A traveller’s checklist

Getting there

Virgin Australia flies twice weekly from Perth; aim to catch the faster, direct flight.

The coastline of Christmas Island. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

Staying there

Try the new Christmas Island Apartments or go for all-inclusive luxe at Swell Lodge. Both feature in our guide to Christmas Island accommodation.

Eating there

Grab the daily $15 special – pho, kway teow, wontons – at the basic but authentic Poon Saan Coffee Shop, and spend Saturdays gazing over the ocean at Rumah Tinggi Tavern. And learn more about eating on Christmas Island with our culture and foodie guide.

Playing there

Start planning for next year’s Indian Ocean Fest.

Located 2600 km north-west of Perth and closer to Asia than to mainland Australia, Christmas Island is unlike anywhere you’ve ever visited before.

Christmas Island, unfairly, is no stranger to bad headlines. So if the only thing you know about this tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is what you’ve read in the news, read on to find out why – between its luxury eco-retreat, unique wildlife encounters and secret swimming spots – it might just be Australia’s best-kept secret, and one of the most unforgettable places you’ll ever visit.

1. It’s a tropical jungle paradise

With a tropical climate that enjoys balmy temperatures in the mid-20s year-round and a landscape characterised by lush jungle and an emerald-green coastline, Christmas Island is a true island paradise. It’s home to a dazzling array of rare and unusual birds and a crazy numbers of crabs, not to mention secret swimming spots and jungle waterfalls – and 63 per cent of its footprint is designated national park.

Tropical reefs teeming with life lie beyond the shoreline; with water temperatures bobbing around a clement 28°C, they make for some of the best diving and snorkelling spots you’ll find anywhere.

Christmas Island is a true paradise.

2. It’s home to one of Australia’s most remote and exclusive eco-lodges

Swell Lodge is Christmas Island’s first luxury eco-retreat, set deep within the jungle of Christmas Island National Park on the edge of a cliff-side that drops away into the Indian Ocean. Its two solar-powered eco chalets are completely secluded from each other and thoughtfully designed in suitably natural and oceanic tones.

The pièce de résistance in each eco-chalet is an expansive private deck that provides your very own audience with the Indian Ocean – with its mighty swell and mesmerising sunsets. A stay at Swell Lodge is an all-inclusive experience, and includes dinner prepared on your deck each night by your very own chef, who works creatively and expertly with ingredients foraged straight from the jungle.

By day, guided activities include everything from nature trails to waterfalls, hidden beaches, swimming holes and the magical wetland area known as the Dales (a popular crab hangout), to boat trips out to some of the island’s best snorkelling spots. In-chalet yoga sessions and massages are also on hand for when you need a little downtime after all that adventuring.

Swell Lodge is Christmas Island’s first luxury eco-retreat.

You can find more Christmas Island accommodation here.

3. It’s closer to Asia than mainland Australia

A trip to Christmas Island lets you feel like you’re leaving the country without having to think about visa requirements or plug adaptors: a speck in the Indian Ocean 2600 kilometres north-west of Perth, this Australian territory is closer to Asia than to mainland Australia; its nearest neighbour is Java, just 360 kilometres away. A direct flight from the WA capital takes just under four hours (and departs from the international terminal – all part of the adventure).

Virgin Australia runs flights twice a week from Perth.

Christmas Island is a wild destination in the Indian Ocean that’s closer to Asia than Perth. (Image: Christmas Island Tourism Association)

4. It has some of Australia’s best – and most hidden – beaches

Secluded, fringed by coconut palms and only accessible via a forest boardwalk, Dolly Beach on Christmas Island’s east coast was voted seventh best beach in Australia by Tourism Australia beach ambassador Brad Farmer in 2017. And it’s just one of many similarly hidden gems on the island.

While its 80-kilometre coastline is dominated by an almost continuous sea cliff, it gives way to some shallow bays and a series of small and impossibly pretty sand and coral shingle beaches. There’s even one so petite, Merrial Beach (only accessible at low tide), that it comfortably accommodates a couple of people at a time; local ‘law’ dictates that if you already see a car parked at the trail’s entrance, drive on.

Explore Australia’s best – and most hidden – beaches. (Photo: Chris Bray)

5. There are secret swimming spots to discover

One of the joys of a trip to Christmas Island is getting to experience its myriad secret swimming holes, from a grotto associated with Chinese legend to Hughs Dale Waterfall (which makes not so much for a swimming spot as it does a rainforest shower spot).

Indulge in a rainforest shower at Hughs Dale Waterfall.

Take the mostly easy 1.5-kilometre walk through the rainforest along a boardwalk to get to the Hughs Dale Waterfall. This waterfall is set within the Dales, a unique wetland ecosystem that is fed from streams that bubble up from underground caves that flow into the ocean and have resulted in pooling water that has hewn a series of gorges into the landscape over time.

The Grotto, a sandy-floored hidden pool drenched with streaks of sunlight flowing in from the entrance of the cave, is equally magical and just a 10-minute drive from the Settlement. Then there are the island’s many beaches to explore; put Lily Beach at the top of your list, it is surrounded by cliffs on both sides and the at low tide the ocean recedes to reveal a collection of pretty rock pools to explore.

6. Christmas Island has some of the world’s best snorkelling and diving

Ringed by tropical reef, Christmas Island erupts dramatically from the edge of the Java Trench, the Indian Ocean’s deepest point – and with practically no coastal shelf, this means the water plummets to a depth of about 500 metres not far offshore, which means you don’t have to sail (or swim) very far to find some spectacular diving walls. All this combines to make for some of the best snorkelling and diving conditions in the world.

Take a day trip out with Christmas Island Wet ‘n’ Dry Adventures (an option when you stay at Swell Lodge) to explore untouched corals and shipwrecks and meet all manner of tropical fish including surgeon fish, wrasse, butterfly fish and giant trevally. You might even spot dolphins, sea turtles, and, between November and April, the majestic whale shark.

Christmas Island has some of the world’s best snorkelling and diving.

7. You can see crabs all year round. Lots of ’em.

You might have heard of the annual red crab migration that takes place on Christmas Island and was made famous by Sir David Attenborough; the naturalist has described witnessing this phenomenon while shooting a documentary in 1990 as one of his greatest TV moments.

An estimated 40 to 50 million bright red land crabs live in shady spots all over the island and every year, with the first rainfall of the wet season, they start their merry march across the island to the ocean to breed – swarming across roads, streams, rocks and beaches and turning them all into blankets of red. The migration (which can happen anytime between October and January) is the island’s biggest tourist attraction but if your visit doesn’t coincide, rest assured you’ll still see crabs. Lots of ’em.

In fact, their proliferation contributes to a sense of ‘island time’ – the time it takes you to drive anywhere is dependent on how many crabs you must carefully navigate around and gently sweep off the road (your Swell Lodge hosts will show you how). In fact, you get so used to this idiosyncratic island ritual that it makes going to home to crab-free roads a rather strange sensation at first.

The annual crab migration is a sight to behold.

8. But it’s not all about the red crabs

The red crab is just one of 14 species of land crab that lives on Christmas Island. There’s also the endemic Christmas Island blue crab – with its beautiful sky-blue hues – and the coconut crab, the largest land-living arthropod in the world that’s also known as the robber crab on account of its thieving tendencies. Christmas Island hosts the largest and best-protected population of these magnificent creatures in the world.

Keep your eyes peeled for a blue crab.

9. It’s a birdwatcher’s paradise

People flock (pun intended) from around the world to catch sight of Christmas Island frigatebird patrolling the sky, the rarest of its kind in the world, and the Abbott’s booby, a species of the seabird that only breeds here on the island. There are hundreds of bird species here, with seven of the 13 land birds endemic to the island. Watch out for the elegant golden bosun, the melodious Christmas Island thrush and the elusive Christmas Island hawk owl.

One place you’re all but guaranteed a sighting of an Abbott’s booby, or one of the island’s other feathered friends, is during feeding time at the volunteer-run bird rehabilitation centre at the Parks Australia headquarters.

There are hundreds of bird species on the island.

10. And a natural scientist’s dream, too

With so many endemic species, Christmas Island is considered the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean; you’ll meet plenty of PhD students out here researching its weird and wonderful fauna. Their efforts are focused on the Pink House, a research station in the middle of the rainforest that includes a reptile house and Lizard Lounge, which is open to tourists every Wednesday.

Here, Parks Australia is busy breeding the blue-tail lizard, which is extinct in the wild, and other endemic reptiles

11. Christmas Island is a melting pot of cultures

The island is home to a multicultural community that harmoniously blends Buddhist, Christian, Taoist and Muslim residents. The foundation of this melting pot was laid in the late 19^th century, when Britain annexed Christmas Island to claim its valuable phosphate deposits and migrant workers, including Chinese, Malays and Sikhs, arrived from overseas to staff the mine and its operations.

The island became an Australian territory in 1958 and today its 2000-strong population, focused largely on the settlement at Flying Fish Cove, is a mixture of Chinese and Malay Australians as well as people from mainland Australia. Watch out for the Taoist temples and shrines that overlook the ocean, and the gleaming mosque in Kampong, the island’s traditionally Malay neighbourhood.

You’ll find the melting pot of cultures reflected in the architecture on Christmas Island.

12. It’s got one of the world’s most unique golf courses

This one’s for those who like their nine-hole golf course with a view. Australia’s northernmost golf course is located among palm trees and tropical rainforest with a sweeping view of the Indian Ocean. Just watch out for robber crabs trying to pinch your golf ball. Established in 1955, the golf course hosts the Christmas Island Golf Open every year in May.

13. There’s even an open-air cinema

Cap off your unique island experience by watching a movie in the balmy open-air of Christmas Island Outdoor Cinema. Established in the ’80s, this community-based organisation is run by volunteers and screens new-release and cult-classic movies at 7.30pm every Saturday. Tickets are just $5 a pop for adults and $2 for children (up to 17 years), and there’s a kiosk, too, selling choc tops, popcorn and other snacks.

14. You can stopover in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Get two holidays for one when you visit Christmas Island by stopping over in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands – another external Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, about halfway between Perth and Sri Lanka.

Of the two return flights between Perth and Christmas Island a week, one leg of each goes via the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This atoll of 27 islands, of which only two are inhabited (with a tiny community of about 600 Cocos Malay people), is a perfect complement to a stay on Christmas Island. Both fall into tropical paradise territory: whereas Christmas Island is all wild jungle and dramatic sea cliffs, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are all long stretches of white-sand beaches fringed by lazily swaying palm trees.

The waters off the island are famously pristine.

15. Christmas Island is a freediver’s dream

A dreamy destination for both the professional freedivers and for those wanting to learn the skills to dive beneath the surface on one breath. Australian freediving champion and AIDA/Molchanovs instructor David Mulheron, has a passion for teaching others to freedive. Christmas Island is blessed with crystal clear water, incredible marine life and freedivers are blessed with the luxury of the reef dropping off only a short swim from shore. You won’t believe what you can see in just one breath.

Whether you are a complete newbie or are fine-tuning your skills, you will learn techniques in a short period of time that will leave you feeling confident and in awe of what your body is capable of. Our tip would be to schedule your freediving course for the first two days of your trip, that way you can continue to improve your skills every day for the rest of your visit to this remote slice of paradise.

Freediving with Dave Mulheron on Christmas Island

Learn to freedive to explore the underwater paradise of Christmas Island.