North Keeling Island

North Keeling is a lone atoll about twenty five kilometres north of the main Cocos group, protected as Pulu Keeling National Park and hardly touched by people. Its ring of scrub and palms around a closed lagoon holds a colony of tens of thousands of red-footed boobies, along with frigatebirds, terns and the endemic Cocos buff-banded rail. Off its reef lies the wreck of the German cruiser Emden, run aground here after its defeat in 1914. Visits need a permit from Parks Australia and a boat in calm weather, so only a few groups land in a year.