Operators of a luxury eco-lodge on Christmas Island have devised a unique solution enabling them to drive along roads carpeted with large red crabs without crushing them – and a trial of their crab-mobile has been approved by Parks Australia.

Every year at about this time, one of the world’s great animal migrations takes place on Australia’s remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean: 40-million red crabs emerge from their burrows in the forest and begin their migration down to the coast to spawn. The crab invasion is a magnet for tourists but creates unique challenges for island life.

Rangers from the Christmas Island National Park carefully monitor and close many of the roads around the island to ensure the crabs’ safe passage, including the road to Swell Lodge, a set of secluded eco-chalets along the wilderness coastline inside the National Park. To be able to drive to and from the lodge during migration without impacting the crabs, owner Chris Bray came up with an ingenious solution which guests have nicknamed the ‘crab-mobile’: Four ‘crab-sweep’ attachments that mount in front of each wheel, harmlessly bumping crabs aside as they drive past.

“It’s pretty slow, but the guests love it.” says Bray, “And it beats carrying suitcases and supplies through the jungle on foot, in the rain!”

Bray’s video of an earlier version of his crab-sweep last year went viral online and the story ended up on the cover of The Wall Street Journal in the United States. Bray only completed his latest version of the attachments last week – just in time as the crabs began their mass-migration last Sunday.

After more than a decade of media coverage mostly focusing on the on-again, off-again, now empty Immigration Detention Centre, Christmas Island is  reemerging as an eco-tourist’s dream: A stunning tropical paradise, filled with rare and unusual birds and crabs year-round, jungle waterfalls, secluded beaches, caves and surrounded by a crystal-clear, 28°c ocean filled with coral and fish - and even dozens of gentle whale sharks these past months.

The crab migration will continue through to February 2020.

For further information or images, please contact Jahna Luke, Marketing Manager at Christmas Island Tourism, on +61 8 9164 8382 or marketing@christmas.net.au

Christmas Island – A Natural Wonder