MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAND

The hazy splendour of Silhouette in the Seychelles

AFTER a 45-minute, bumpy boat ride on choppy Indian Ocean waters, I was hot, nauseous and exhausted. I was also wishing I’d had another mango muffin for breakfast since my one had been so delicious. I had just arrived on Silhouette Island, 20km from the main island in the Seychelles archipelago, Mahé.

After experiencing the absolute splendour of Mahé at Hilton’s Northolme Resort & Spa, I didn’t have many expectations about this island. An island is an island, right? But I couldn’t have been more wrong. My mind was so preoccupied by the mystery of the dark ocean we had just travelled that I barely glanced at what was before me.

It took me a while to let it all sink in — the shades of turquoise water; the fine, white sand; the tall palms; the fiercely green forest tucked up against the solid mountains.

It was picture-perfect at first but the more I stared at the wonder before me, the more its ragged edges peeked through.

Silhouette Island is not a perfectly manicured spot where holidaymakers can indulge in a slice of paradise. It is more real than that.

As we drove in a golf cart from the docking area to the resort, we passed a basketball court, a community hall and a primary school, all built for the people who live here. There is also a health centre, which is for the use of the locals and holidaymakers alike.

The local village — population 200 — and the Hilton Labriz Resort and Spa, the only resort on the island, occupy just 3% of the land. The rest is a national park of fauna and flora wrapped around volcanic mountains.

Once the wonder settled in, I was ready to explore the resort. It is made up of individual villas, some of which have garden views, some have sea views; and then there are the extraordinary deluxe suites.

My day job as a political journalist very rarely takes me near that kind of pomp and splendour.

“The bathroom is almost the size of my bachelor flat,” I texted my friend as I basked in the beauty of my villa.

Imagine a shower the size of a king-sized bed with two, yes two, shower heads; and a sprawling Jacuzzi bathtub, which can be enjoyed with the sliding doors open and the ocean slapping against the shore a few metres away.

Outside the villa is a sprawling deck, which leads to an outdoor shower and a private infinity pool on one side and a dining pavilion on the other. Closer to the beach is a hammock strung among tall coconut palms … rather clichéd but I’ll do clichéd if it means I could lie there all day.

Hungry from my not having fully indulged in another mango muffin at breakfast, I went for lunch at Café Dauban, formerly the house of the erstwhile owners of Silhouette Island, the Dauban family, originally from France.

We watched as the chef put together a traditional Creole meal involving lots of coconut in varied forms and a main dish of octopus curry — the best I have had yet.

Labriz excels at culinary decadence with seven restaurants ranging from a Tepenyaki bar to Italian cuisine.

For me, food is the crux of a holiday experience and it was a delight to have so many options at the resort.

Many of the ingredients used in most of the restaurants, including vegetables and herbs, are organic and grown on the island. In my time at the resort, there was nothing I ate that I didn’t want more of.

I sipped on a decadent coconut drink after lunch as I was told the story of a man named Abdullah and his wife, in their 70s, who live on the other side of the island in complete seclusion.

They live in a wooden home only accessible by foot after a four-hour hike. A boat can reach them under exceptional circumstances, I heard. They look after their part of the island, untouched by man, and in lieu they receive goods from the single store on the island in the 3% of the island that is inhabited.

According to the legend, they have been living away from people for 35 years without electricity or running water. If holidaymakers manage to hike for four hours to where they live, the pair will generally shy away. On my second day there, I went on a 40-minute guided hike that left me huffing and puffing. Think boulders and trees with spiky poisonous bark everywhere. It is no easy feat.

This is just one of the aspects that lend allure and charm to Silhouette Island. That and the fact that the locals believe that the ghosts of the matriarch of the Dauban family still roams the island on a white bicycle at night. I didn’t see her. In fact, I slept like a baby. When you are on paradise, you cannot simply pass on the luxuries it has to offer, so naturally a spa treatment was on my agenda. You probably will l have guessed that it is no ordinary spa. It is perched within the mountains surrounded by the greenest greens you will ever see, with sounds of the ocean in the distance. I joked with my therapist that she didn’t even have to do my treatment — simply by lying there, I felt rejuvenated. If you decide to ta be fussed over and pampered and that is exactly the type of serviced both at Hilton Northolme on Mahéwe receive and at Labriz. What stands out fake for me is that there are so many a Seychelles holiday, you expect to varied experiences on offer. It’s not a case of either/or. Your day can begin in the pools, then move to the calm beach, onwards to exploring the reefs and then on once , more to the choppy, deep sea for fishing. We went for a sunset ride on an open boat to the middle of the Indian Ocean, which was a life-changing adventure. There is nothing like feeling completely at the mercy of the ocean as it rocks the boat. From a distance a was also able to fully appreciate the grandeur of the island and all the other tinyy islands that make up the Seychelles That evening we enjoyed a little bit of every eatery on the island, a combustion of flavours and experiences. The day ended with delicious coconut drinks at a moonlit bar ont the ocean’s edge.Our hosts we had any complaints. “There is no moonlight,” I joked. Perhaps that was the only thing that could not be arranged in what was a spectacular experience in Seychelles. — guest of Hilton Hotels