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Christmas holiday island walkthrough
Christmas holiday island walkthrough






Out of the corner of my eye, climbing slowly up a rock face, I noticed something truly bizarre – a huge, colossal, and terrifying looking, creature, the likes of which I had never seen before.

christmas holiday island walkthrough

My first encounter with a Robber crab was while I was photographing, the much smaller, Christmas Island Red crabs inside the Blue grotto on the island’s north coast. PeopleĪ Robber crab climbing out of the Blue grotto on the north coast of Christmas Island. Today, Christmas Island is a territory of Australia, and is administered as a shire of Western Australia. This ushered in a new era for Singapore – under the visionary leadership of Lee Kuan Yew! At the time, the decision to hand the island to Australia was hugely unpopular in Singapore and resulted in the Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, losing the 1959 General election. During this time, much of the population was sent to POW camps in Surabaya (Indonesia).Ĭhristmas Island was managed from Singapore until 1958, when Britain, at Australia’s request, transferred control to Australia. In 1900, the island was incorporated into the British colony of the Straits Settlements, which was administered from Singapore.ĭuring WWII, the Japanese, who desired the island’s rich phosphate reserves, occupied the island from the 31st of March 1942 until it was liberated in October of 1945. Eventually, Ross and Murray established the Christmas Island Phosphate Company, Ltd. Mining commenced in 1899, using indentured labourers from Singapore, Malaysia and China. In 1888, the island was annexed by Great Britain and the first settlement was established at Flying Fish Cove by George Clunies-Ross, the owner of Cocos (Keeling) Islands ( click to read my Travel Guide), which lie 900 km to the south-west.īritain granted a 99-year lease to George Clunies-Ross and John Murray, to mine phosphate and harvest timber. The British naturalist, John Murray analysed the mineral specimens and found that they were nearly pure phosphate. While on the island, a landing party gathered a small collection of flora and fauna from the island.Ī year later, Pelham Aldrich, on board HMS Egeria, visited the island for 10 days, during which time his crew gathered a larger biological and mineralogical collection. In 1886, Captain John Maclear of HMS Flying Fish, discovered a safe anchorage in a bay which he named Flying Fish Cove. The first attempt at exploring the rugged island took place in 1857, when the crew of the Amethysttried to reach the island’s summit but found the steep cliffs to be impassable. It was during his visit to the island that Dampier investigated the sea around the island, however no settlement was established. The first Europeans to set foot on the island did so in March of 1688, as part of a landing party travelling with the famed English navigator, William Dampier. The island was named by Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company, who sailed past it on Christmas day of 1643. Uninhabited, and lying in obscurity for most of its history, Christmas Island was first sighted in 1615 by Richard Rowe, of the Thomas. This cap contains rich phosphate deposits which have been mined since 1900 (see the ‘ Phosphate Mining‘ section below for more details).

christmas holiday island walkthrough

At each stage, erosion of the coral reef by the ocean has resulted in cliffs which now form stepped terraces which rise from the sea to the central plateau.ĭuring each uplift, coral reefs built up on the basalt core, creating a limestone cap over the island that remains today. Over the course of millions of years, several geological uplifts occurred.

#Christmas holiday island walkthrough series#

The result of geological uplift, the coastline of Christmas Island features a series of towering limestone cliffs. An island ringed by razor-sharp, limestone cliffs, the result of ancient geological uplifts, which is topped by a high, jungle-clad plateau. Welcome to the taste2travel Christmas Island Travel Guide!Īn emerald-coloured jewel in the Indian Ocean, Christmas Island is a remote, rugged, unspoilt natural paradise.Ī relatively young, volcanic island which rises up 5,000 metres from the floor of the Indian Ocean.






Christmas holiday island walkthrough