ST HELENA

THIS TINY BRITISH ISLAND, 1,200 miles off the coast of south-west Africa, has a new airport and an even newer commercial air service, linking it to South Africa and Namibia.

Visitors to the “secret of the South Atlantic”, as governor Lisa Phillips likes to call her remote rock, will get to know St Helena (and its hiking trails, mountain peaks, and diving and fishing spots) intimately since planes connect it to the mainland only once a week.

This island was once the perfect penal colony. Indeed, Napoleon resided here at His Majesty’s pleasure until his death in 1821. Boers and a Zulu king were also banished here at one time. Today’s most famous (and longest-serving) St Helenian is Jonathan, the giant tortoise who, according to the tourist board, is more than 180 years old. “He’s blind from cataracts, has lost his sense of smell, but he has retained excellent hearing,” says the island’s vet Joe Hollins. This might explain Jonathan’s slight confusion over his regular mating partner Frederika who, it turns out, is not a female tortoise as previously thought, but a male tortoise.