30 August 2022 Tuesday – Perth to Christmas Island

Up at 7am for breakfast & pack again for our flight to Christmas Island. The shuttle bus from the motel departs at 9.30am & takes us all the way to the T1 International Terminal. Thankfully check-in is open as we are a little early & we only wait for a few people before we present our Passports & get our boarding passes. Upstairs we were the only people bothering the Passport control & similarly we were the only people at the security check. I got patted down for some strange reason, there are weird places that are highlighted on me, like the top of my head (maybe the bald patch had a metallic shine).

I had a video meeting that started at 11am local Perth time so we found some comfortable seats & I settled in.  Tereza got some coffee & lunch before the plane started to board a bit after midday.  The meeting was nearly done, so I excused myself & packed the laptop & boarded. We were delayed leaving as the plane was still refuelling then after that there were still some flight checks that needed to occur so we were around 20 minutes late taking off. The flight to Christmas Island was smooth, the plane had no frills to it, so it was good that Tereza had the foresight & got us lunch.  The plane wi-fi worked, however, the movies that were the only things available on it did not. We both had a little snooze & after 3 & a bit hours we started to descend with a little bit of movement as we came down through the clouds. We were sitting near the back of the plane & it took ages to get off as all the locals had lots of hand luggage & some young children. Warm humidity hit us as we got off the plane, 26 degrees.  We hardly got off the plane & we already got into trouble, there was this great sign on the wall “Christmas Island Airport” Tereza thought that it was great to take a photo with, an official came across & told us that photo taking was forbidden. Hints of our experiences in some parts of post-communist Europe here.

Our luggage was some of the first pieces on the luggage carousel, so we were out & through immigration & greeted by the Christmas Island Bird Week hosts. We received a welcome pack with shirt, hat, other goodies & importantly, our schedule for the week. Our bus was right there & we all loaded on ready for the trip to our hotel. Surprisingly the trip was a lot further than we expected, around 9km from the airport winding through thick lush rainforest with lots of ferns. There are lots of wild roosters & chooks with little chickens roaming around the island.

The bus delivered us to our accommodation for the week, the Sunset Hotel, with views looking out over the ocean from our room. In the distance we could see some patrol boats that circle around the island looking out for illegal fishermen & boat people. We settled in, then headed off for dinner at the noodle House around 400 metres away. Here we met all the others in the bird group plus our guides for the week, they all seem very nice people (amazingly they all seem to be around our vintage). We watched the sunset from the deck & the food was simply delicious with plenty to go around. On the walk back to our hotel a group of birders were gathered together & we stopped to see why. A Christmas Island Hawk-Owl was in the palm tree & flitting to the frangipani. This is such a beautiful bird, so we stopped and we looked at it & took a few photos. The night was balmy, the walk back was pleasant & helped settle down dinner & finished off another great day.