Revisiting my place of birth....................!!
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2004
1
15
16
Trip End
Aug 23, 2005
Where I stayed
Christmas Island,
Christmas Island
Friday, April 29, 2005
I'd truly forgotten just how beautiful the island is, having not been back for 25 years - it truly is a tropical island paradise and all the geckos, palm trees, coconuts, crabs dirt tracks, phosphate mines and the like really, really took me back......! Tourism has got no hope though which I'm so thankful for as I'd be gutted if the island ever went the way of Koh Samui or the like. It's the tip of a giant (dead) volcano and is on the edge of the Java trench, the deepest trench in the world. As a result, the sea bed drops off very, very quickly......
The only thing going for the Island is the diving and is apparently one of the top ten diving sites in the world. I went diving with a couple from Japan who have been diving for 10-odd years and have done 100s of dives and even they were absolutely amazed at the quality of fish and coral. The table coral is apparently some of the best in the world and is unbelievably huge. We did a cave dive and saw numerous lantern fish that glow fluorescent green and loads of small red prawns that eat the dead skin off your feet (very pleasant!). The best dive though was a sunrise dive where we were in the water before 6.30am and saw no less that 20(!!!!!!!!!!) grey reef and white tip sharks - one of which was around 3m long! The only down-side is that this couple told me that after the diving in CI, the Great Barrier Reef will be boring as hell (so will do the GBR but also the Coral Sea - way out beyond the GBR). The other thing that made it so good was that (as mentioned) the drop-off is very quick and 15-20m from the shore the ledge drops off into the abyss! I found myself very quickly dropping to 35m and over just to see the fish without realising (the deepest I went was nearly 40m and I'm only qualified to dive to 30m!) but as a result, we did see a lot more and a lot of deep-water stuff (like several sting and devil-rays and numerous morays). The bat fish were absolutely huge and I didn't realise they grew that big. They also swam less than a foot from us and were unbelievably tame. Anyway, could talk about the diving all day but won't bore you any more. The photos will hopefully come out OK..........!
The place I stayed in ('The Sunset') is built where the old hospital was (i.e. where I was born!) and the new hospital is up by the airport. The Trade Store is the same place but now, rather imaginatively, called The Supermarket. The CI Club has been neglected for years and is extremely run-down but the bar is still there and serves every day. I met a guy there from Borneo who has been on the Island for almost 30 years - his (nick)name is Stubby and he helped run the DC3 flights to Jakarta. I also met an old guy in the Kampong called 'Jamil' who knew my Dad (he said just to say Jamil but there must be dozens)?!! Mary-Anne(??) McNeill is still on the Island and lives on her own in Drumsite as Rory and he husband died in a car accident a few years ago. I managed to track her down via her son Neil (why would you do that to your son?!!) and spoke to her at last in the airport before the place left. She was polite but not particularly friendly. Jackie Kerr has gone back to Perth as her husband died last year and the Smolders still have their house in Settlement which is very run-down but they apparently intend to keep. I met Glenys and Rob Watson and their daughter Lisa who was in Caroline's year and now lives on the Island with her husband and toddler son. Other than all that I've got no info on anyone else who was on the Island during our time.
The mining is now all secondary mining and CIP (CI Phosphates who is basically the Union run management) have got govt permission to chop down all old forest that has grown back over the years on sites where mining used to take place - very, very sad and the Islanders are rightly very anti it. The phosphate is all C-grade stuff being exported to Malaysia and Indonesia but they reckon it'll last another 5 or maybe 10 years. The casino has long been canned and the buildings are all there but the caretaker/owners are STILL desperately trying to sell. It was only open a few years but more than paid for itself and was very successful laundering all the Chinese Triad money! The Space Base has not got off the ground (excuse the pun) and the investors have lost interest and walked away so that'll never happen now. If it had, then the agreement was also to extend the airport, so unfortunately that'll never get done either. The big thing is a new AUD 250-300m detention centre for asylum seekers being built and a Navy frigate permanently circles the Island all year round now (to deter boats??). Obviously the Islanders are lobbying furiously to halt/reduce the building but to little effect and the fall-out could be very bad for the Island. I'll keep a close eye on developments as I'd like to buy something in Settlement but prices have risen steadily for 15 odd years now and could drop on something like this. I went to the house and a couple live there that have owned it since 1997 (they said that when C and G went, the Chinese family that were there were just renting it for 3 months). They've added an enormous veranda on the back overlooking the sea but otherwise have structurally left it unaltered and have decorated the interior very tastefully. I'm so pleased they love it so much and have taken such good care of it. They bought it from the govt for peanuts and have made a fortune - lucky for some!
Went to Poon Saan to the open air cinema and the screen and seating has not changed at all in the last 25 years! Very spooky being on the Island - everything is same same but different and it all seems much smaller (even the curry puffs!).
Will have to not leave it another 25 years before I go back..............
