7 September 2022 Wednesday – Cocos-Keeling Islands day 1

Up at 6am to be ready to depart by bus before 7am as we have a ferry that waits for no-one to catch. There are dark clouds across the lagoon as we wait for the ferry & there is rain falling in the distance. The inter-island ferry is a nice new catamaran that was built by Incat in Tasmania & looks great riding smoothly over the lagoon as it comes toward us. The shores of the lagoon are lined with sand with coconut palms standing tall along the shoreline, the vision of a real tropical paradise.

The ferry arrives & a load of children disembark heading to high school on the West Island. Home Island only has schooling to Year 6 so the children have to travel between islands twice a day. We walk up the stairs to the top deck and enjoy the views for a while until the rain reaches us & we scurry downstairs. After the rain clears we venture back upstairs for a while only to have more rain send us downstairs again. We watch with interest as we near the Home Island wharf & slot into a berth behind a large cargo barge & a large government boat named the “Robert J Hawke” after a former Prime Minister. The trip by the catamaran ferry takes less than half an hour.

We walk to the nearby picnic tables overlooking the lagoon & have breakfast of croissant, smoked salmon, cheeses & salads, all delicious & a great way to start the day. In the large tree above our heads is a small flock of tiny white terns, they are such cute little birds. We walk down the orderly streets of Home Island settlement & are taken by the ordered neatness of this small village. Some buildings have colourful murals on their walls & one noticeable difference is that there is no visible rubbish laying around, whereas on Christmas Island a lot of the houses & yards are notable for their untidiness & rubbish lying around. The community mosque is neat with a nice golden minaret on the roof & then we walk along a long treed avenue to Oceania House, former home of the Clunies-Ross family, the former owners of this group of islands.

The house is a large two story building made from white glazed bricks imported from Glasgow, Scotland & we are fortunate enough to be shown around the interior of the house. The house is being restored & will open soon for guests to enjoy. The rooms are all large with high ceilings, the bedrooms are all upstairs with a beautiful curved wooden staircase leading up. The house is decorated in period furniture, with some original Clunies-Ross pieces scattered around. I like the longcase grandfather clock the most. The house itself needs a little more repair & tidying, but looks structurally sound. It is a shame the gardens have been let go, apparently they looked very good. The new owner bought the place unseen & is turning it into tourist accommodation.

We walk back down the avenue & enjoy the views over the lagoon, it is very pretty. Our next stop is the Pulu Cocos Museum, a small museum that tells the story of Cocos Island with an interesting array of artefacts. In one corner is a collection of wooden puppets that are part of the culture of the Malay Cocos population on Home Island. A collection of five heads of the Clunies-Ross male hierarchy that was originally in Oceania House are on display. A machine used to make local currency from plastic using injection moulding by Clunies-Ross to pay wages that could be spent in the local store was also displayed. There are two large wooden sailing boats made from teak on display that were made by George Clunies-Ross & Cocos Malay craftsmen, they both have nice lines & look very seaworthy.

We pass one of the old wells that was used to extract water from the underground freshwater sitting on top of the saltwater.  Water is now extracted using bores, pumps & then filtration. In a large covered shed nearby is a large collection of sailing boats, originally designed & built to transport coconuts from the surrounding islands they are now sailed for pleasure & most are in very good condition.

There are other buildings that are the remains of the old workshops used for the coconut & copra trade for processing of the coconuts & the whole series of support workshops such as boatbuilding, sailmaking & general carpentry. On the waterfront is the remains of a dual slipway & the related winches & workshops, all in a poor state of repair. Of interest was the trolley that was at water level used to transfer boats from one slipway to another without putting the boat into the water. The stainless steel pins used for the wheel bearings are the only parts that are still shiny & not rusted.

The war memorial is sobering & a reminder of the three Cocos Islanders killed by Japanese bombing during WWII. Nearby are two old wooden boats laying out in the weather & on display, one of them is an old loading barge & the other is a motorised launch, both past being of any use. Near them are four anchors & an old muzzle loading cannon that must have been on display at one stage, now in a state of apparent abandonment. There are some white terns in the tree above & I take a few photos of them, one white tern fluttering above David in an apparent display of defence.

We are back on the ferry across to West Island & Kylie takes us down to The Barge, an art centre that has used an old restored island ferry as the art display area with an attached coffee shop. Some of the artwork uses plastic & other refuse that is washed up on the island’s shores. We admire the artwork then move outside to enjoy the views with the outlying reef framed through the coconut palms. There are lots of hermit crabs of all sizes walking around underfoot on the sand.

The next part of our day we head off to the Eastern tip of West Island to the canoe adventure site where we have a salad lunch under the shelter of a rudimentary shed as a shower of rain passes through. After lunch we grab a motorised canoe with outriggers for a boat trip in the lagoon, the canoes all have a small 2hp outboard attached on the stern & a big bailing bucket in the bottom. Just next to us there is a lot of people out kite sailing & having a great time in the strong winds. We get in & venture off in the canoes to the nearest island across the lagoon, it is a little tricky going through the gap in the rocks to the island & a few strand their canoes on the rocks, we sail through with no problems. We anchor the canoes, take off our lifejackets & go for a swim, most of us ride the current around to the other side of the island then walk back through the centre of the small island past an old battered shack that had been used by someone to live in.

We then motor across the lagoon to the next small island, where we land has a huge number of hermit crabs of all sizes feeding on some lettuce leaves that someone had left there previously. We are amazed to see so many hermit crabs in one place. Our tour leader Ash drew 3 circles & we were asked to choose a random hermit crab & put it in the middle, we all had to get out of the circle & see whose crab will win the race, mine came in 4^th. Next we walk into the centre of the island where blue tailed skinks from Christmas Island Lizard Research Centre captive breeding program have been released. We take part in an ad-hoc study counting the number of lizards we see sunning on a tree, others in our group are doing the same on their allocated trees. We also are to take note of how many lizards have lost their tails & how big the lizards are. We count five blue tailed skinks sunning themselves on our tree, all with tails & all of adult size.

Back off across the lagoon surging down waves & splashing through the backs of waves, it is a fair distance back across to the site we departed from on West Island but we cruise along & enjoy the scenery & the ride. We are wet when we get back & pull the canoes up onto the beach, then take off our spray jackets & life jackets & climb back into the minibus for the ride back to our motel. A hot shower was in order to warm up & wash the salt out of our hair & off us, plus rinse the salt off our clothes. The old fishing line tied across the porch out the back of our room was used to hang up our wet clothes & swimmers to dry.

Dinner tonight is next door at the Tropika Restaurant & is a smorgasbord that starts at 6.00pm. We get there right on time & help ourselves to a selection of delicious dishes, I go back for a small selection of seconds then line up & have a bit of dessert. Our group has a large table outside looking out at the reef & the breaking waves, we do a lot of talking then head off for a well-earned sleep, we are exhausted. Another great day.