The Soldier Crabs of Maianbar

It’s around 2PM on an overcast day when I make the split second decision to turn off to Maianbar. It’s not hot, hot but it is hot in that humid, sticky way where everything just feels damp. We’ve also been sprinkled on, on and off all day and at this point I am all walked out and am absolutely full to the brim with delicious fish and chips and am sleepy in that carb loaded way. But I’ve been told about the Soldier Crabs that teem across the sand flats at low tide in Maianbar and I’m a sucker for both those lovely lumps of blue/purple crabbiness and for a new place to explore and the turn off is literally there in front of me and so I quickly turn the wheel to the right.

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We honestly had no idea of what to expect from this little town. It’s about 30 kilometres south of Sydney CBD but feels a world away. There’s one little shop/cafe which could be mistaken for someone’s home and I did that thing where you stop dead when I walked in and saw the bowls of homemade pasta on the tables. I wasn’t actually in someone’s loungeroom, was I? 😳

So… where are the actual crabs?

I shuffled down the slimy boat ramp, eyes down making sure that for once I stayed upright and didn’t look up again until my boots began to sink into the silt. Mangroves extended out to the left and right framing this huge expanse of sand exposed by the falling tide and sure, it was pretty but there was absolutely no sign of any Soldier Crabs.

You know how the sky gets really dark, all light sucked out just before the heavens open up? Well, that’s pretty much how it was the entire time we stood there. I’d look up at the sky hoping to sense the deluge before we got caught in it and then back to the sand, hoping not to miss the crabs as they began to emerge ready to start feeding. I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘exploring the area’ but at least I know how to keep my eye on the prize!

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Here they come!

It wasn’t sudden but there definitely came a time where little lumps started to appear in the sand and there was a sound, almost like a bubbling as the wet sand started to be displaced. You never know how many crabs will emerge as it can vary with temperature and weather conditions but at this point, I was happy to see anything. And finally, in the distance we spotted our first crabs. Now, don’t make the same mistake I did. If you run towards these crabs they’re are just going to bury themselves, cork screwing themselves back down into the sand.

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But if you wait long enough and stay still enough, the crabs begin to emerge and you get to see them do some serious acrobatics, falling backwards before flipping right way up again apparently in an effort to shake off any excess sand on their bodies. And so they start to feed, marching together as they scoop up wet sand filtering it for teeny bits of organic matter leaving pellets of inedible mud and sand behind them. 

It wasn’t the weather I had hoped for. The light was awful and the wind made it so you couldn’t hear the ‘tink, tink, tink’ of the hundreds of thousands of little legs running across the sand. Damn. But still, not a bad way to spend a rainy, sleepy afternoon and I think the Silver Gull (below) would agree!

Soldier Crabs – Maianbar

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