6 September 2022 Tuesday – Christmas Island day 8 to Cocos-Keeling Islands

This morning we are treated to a beautiful rainbow as a shower of rain went through as we ate a cooked breakfast at 7.30am of bacon & eggs, then back to our room to pack our bags. It is a lot more difficult fitting everything in as we are now wearing our summer clothes & all of our winter clothes have to be packed in the bag, it is a tight squeeze. We wheel our bags around to the back enclosed verandah & then set off in one of the cars to explore the settlement.

Our destination this morning is Tai Jin House again, this building is in good condition compared to the rest of the abodes on Christmas Island. This time the museum upstairs is open & we spend some time reading about the history of Christmas Island from its beginnings & viewing some of the artefacts collected over the years. It is all very interesting & sad how mainly Malaysian & Chinese labourers were treated, like slaves by their bosses.  We finish by watching a video of both the island & the mining operations. This is pertinent as a ship has just come into port this morning & has begun loading phosphate with clouds of red phosphate dust billowing from the ship as the phosphate is loaded.

We bundle into the car again as Pam wants to go to the Post Office so we stop there & squeeze into the tiny store packed with goods. We end up not buying anything so we drive the short distance to the nearby Visitor Centre & spend a bit of time browsing through the touristy goods on display & we all end up buying a few small things. Nearby is the local Christmas Island Bakery so we decide to stop there for lunch. To our surprise it is a bakery unlike any we have been to before, no pastries, no cakes, no pies, no sausage rolls. Only a couple of loaves of bread. They do have cold drinks & they do make food, such as a variety of burgers & chips plus toasted sandwiches. There are some chicken wings & one other item of hot food in the heated display (that is cold). I have a burger with chips & Tereza some chicken wings, we are both disappointed.

We leave the others to walk back to the Sunset Lodge, it is not that far, then Tereza & I drive up to Poon San to visit the hardware store that sells all sorts of things, not just hardware, it certainly is different to any hardware store we have seen before. Things like shoes, socks, undies, thongs, tourist soaps, candles, essential oils, etc. Back then to the Golden Bosun in time for our departure to the airport, there is no rush as the woman at the hardware store also works at security at the airport & she told us the plane is delayed an hour leaving Perth. There are people on the island working in 2 or 3 jobs because there is a labour shortage, but even if they could fill the positions there is no accommodations for workers.

All our luggage is bundled into the cars & bus, with Tereza & I travelling with Lisa, our tour leader. We arrive at the airport in plenty of time & check our luggage in & collect our boarding passes. We sit in the airport lounge for around an hour waiting for security to open, which it does just after the incoming plane from Perth lands. We then line up & pass through security with no problem, we see Kerrie from the hardware store behind the x-ray machine scanning the baggage as it passes through. Only 20 of us lucky people can travel to Cocos-Keeling as that is all that they can accommodate, the others return to Perth & home.

The flight to Cocos-Keeling Island is not full & the plane takes around 90 minutes to get there. The landing is a little bumpy as it is fairly windy on the island & the pilot stamps on the brakes as the runway is not that long. While in the plane Tereza manages to take a photo of “Christmas Island Airport” the sign that we were forbidden from photographing on our arrival. We taxi to the end of the runway then turn & taxi most of the way back up to the terminal.

 Our luggage is thankfully on the first trolley so I collect our bags & we make our way out past the Federal Police, handing him our immigration cards. We are informed that there are very few vehicles on the road & the speed limit is 30km/hr.  The islands are not big & everything is walking distance. Kylie, our tour leader on Cocos-Keeling Island is waiting for us with a sign outside & she waits for us all to gather before leading us on a one minute walk across the road from the airport terminal building to our accommodation. One member of our group has not had her luggage delivered on the trolley & has complained to the baggage handlers. Kylie takes us to our hotel then goes back to speak to the manager, however, to no avail, her luggage remains on the plane & is taken to Perth. I suppose that’s not too bad, on Christmas Island 7 people in our tour group their luggage hasn’t turned up.  Virgin Airlines I think should lift their game.  On these islands there are very few shops or I should say nowhere to buy necessary clothing.

We drop our bags in the room then gather out the front & Kylie takes us back over to the airport for dinner. The pizza place called Saltys Pizza is our dinner venue & after we all get drinks piping hot pizza is delivered to our tables, pizza of all different varieties & it is delicious. We all eat more than we should & there is some left over. We walk slowly back to our rooms with very full bellies. Once again we scored a nice room with a million dollar ocean view, just like on Christmas Island, so far we have been lucky with our luggage & accommodations. Another great day.