Day 4

Big bird day.

We got up at dawn again to drive to Lily & Ethel Beach where tons of Brown Boobies nest in the crags of the limestone. The boobies were quite calm and we could get some great portraits from a couple meters away, as long as you could navigate the extremely pointy bits of rock. I love how funny the boobies look front on.

Then we drove to a different place where Red-footed Boobies nest in the trees on the side of the road. They were active all around us collecting bits of twigs and branches to build up their nests.

We also went to a museum full of all sorts of artefacts showing the history of Christmas Island, which mostly revolves around mining phospate.

After that we went to one of my favourite parts of the trip. We walked into a dam on one of Chris’s friends property where frigatebirds swoop down to get water. Frigatebirds are seabirds but they’re not actually waterproof so they can’t sit on the water to rest or catch fish. Instead they have to sleep while they’re flying, harass other birds into throwing up their food so they can eat it, and drink on the wing. Crazy eh!

A dozen or so frigatebirds would circle around and around until one of them decided to drink. Then the rest would also decide to drink too for a few minutes, and then you’d have to wait a bit for the next cycle to start. This was not an easy thing to photograph as they are quite fast. Eventually we kind of figured out that the once the first bird cleared a little patch in the algae then the other birds would probably drink from there too, so you could kind of try to focus on that spot. I took at least 300 photos and only 1 or 2 are any good. Most of them don’t even have a bird in the frame haha.

I also got tons of mosquito bites and tore up my legs running through the sharp grass, but it was worth it, it was seriously magical.

It was always exciting to see a frigatebird with its pouch all blown up (to attract the ladies).

Sadly there was a waterlogged frigatebird stuck in the dam when we got there, but Chris did a dramatic bird rescue with a very long pole and we managed to get it out. He held it in his lap in the car and we brought it back to the bird hospital to dry out. A heroic mission!

By this point I was quite tired. But the day is not over! We drove to Swell Lodge, Chris’s luxury eco-lodge on the West side of the island (in the National Park), for a sticky-beak and for drinks and snacks on the patio. There are only two cabins and they are super super private. If you stay there you get all your food cooked by a private chef and your own private tour guide who will take you to do anything you want on the island. If you can afford to stay there, it would be an unforgettable holiday.

I sipped my champagne while reclining on a deck chair and pretended I was a guest for an hour.

Then we had a BBQ dinner in a park where Chris found us a Giant Gecko (not actually very big) to photograph (with our phones!). We also tried to call in a Hawk Owl but it didn’t work.

Day 5

The next day we went snorkeling again in the cove. The conditions were perfect, it was great. We went all the way out to the drop off again.

We ate a few of our lunches in this one park that often had Golden Bosuns flying over. Golden Bosuns are a really special Christmas Island bird. So I would quickly eat my (delicious) sandwich (with 15 different toppings) and chug 4 glasses of juice/cold water so I could get my camera back out and try to get a good picture of the bosun. It was so hard!! I think Kerryn and Trish and I were a bit addicted to trying. This one turned out ok but it’s pretty heavily cropped.

I think that afternoon some people had their 1-on-1 sessions and the others had some Free Time for the first time, which was needed! That night we went to the golf course lookout to try to photograph flying birds and then we had dinner at a pub called Rumah Tinggi with live music. We all had steak sandwiches and drinks, it was a lovely evening.

Day 6

We split up into two groups. I was on Land Team.

First we went to The Sitting Room, where there were a few nesting Red-tailed Tropicbirds under the bushes, including this one with a lil chick. Omg so fluffy!!!! Again we could get pretty great portraits… all the animals on CI are so chill.

A juvenile Brown Booby derp.

Then we went to The Grotto which is this awesome little cave that you can swim in! So fun!! We tried to do a little bouldering, but I was terrible at it (sorry Rosemarie). I really liked The Grotto.

We went to a lookout where Chris had to go on the outside of the barrier and hack away at the ever-growing jungle to reveal the view. It was somewhat stressful to watch.

After lunch we had more 1-on-1 sessions with Chris or Alex. I used mine to get Alex to show me how she makes her cool videos and reels and stories for Instagram. She showed me tons of great tips and ideas which I have not practiced yet. I really should do that.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I loved it because we ordered so many different things and I got to try it all. Some of the ladies thought it was too exotic, haha.