red crab
migration

Our season runs May to the end of October. Our last guests for the year depart, and then we hand the island back to the crabs for their migration.

A few weeks after we close, the rains arrive, and tens of millions of red crabs leave the forest floor to make their extraordinary journey toward the sea. They do not go around obstacles. They go over them, through them, across roads that have been here far less time than they have. Parks Australia closes those roads as the migration builds — sometimes for a morning, sometimes for days.

Swell Lodge sits on the far west coast of Christmas Island, inside the national park. Every transfer to our Eco-Chalets crosses country the crabs are moving through. When those roads are closed, there is no other access route — no arrivals, no departures, no drives out to a nice picnic spot. We hold permits for crab-safe attachments, and we use them when driving can’t be avoided, but the safest vehicle on the road during migration is one that stays parked.

We could make something work.

But it wouldn't be Swell Lodge, and the island would be worse off for it.

So we hand it back. The forest moves, the crabs do what they’ve always done.

And we open again in May, when the trade winds return and the water goes glass-clear. The red crabs will still be around. You can still spot them here and there, going about their business. It just won’t be 60 million of them at once.

If the migration is what you came for,

Come anyway. We mean that.

It is one of the great wildlife events on earth. The place to base yourself during this time is in town, where the roads are short, the crossings are on the doorstep, and closures might cost you an hour rather than a whole holiday.

Our friends at Indian Ocean Experiences run the migration season wonderfully — accommodation, guiding, and the local knowledge of exactly where the crabs will be on any given morning.

Then, come back and see us at Swell Lodge in the dry season.