Rent your own island paradise
It’s as idyllic as the Maldives. And for $120, this slice of Fiji could be yours for a day.
At the end of the long pier is Fiji’s newest island retreat – but I might as well be walking towards an idyllic island in the Maldives. Except this one costs a mere fraction – just $120 a day.
Turquoise waters lap around a perfectly circular white sandy island, lined with coconut trees. Technicolour cocktails are flowing at the infinity pool.
We’re shown to our private cabana where there’s a phone hotwired to our own butler. Hello Fiji – finally, you’re everything I dreamed of.
Malamala Beach Club opened in August this year and solved a First World problem for the hundreds of thousands of Kiwi tourists who head to Fiji each year (Tourism Fiji says approximately 180,000 Kiwis visited Fiji in the past 12 months. Daniel Finch, Wotif’s managing director, says the Pacific Islands are the third most popular region for Kiwi travellers, after Australia and Southeast Asia).
Getting to an idyllic tropical island from Nadi can take a while, and in some cases be quite taxing on the wallet, so many opt for the resort island of Port Denarau. While the resorts there are grand and glitzy, it’s a far cry from the coconut fringed islands most of us dream of. Now, it’s possible to experience both.
Malamala is only 25 minutes from Denarau, although it feels like another world.
The island is for day-trippers only – unlike other resort islands, where day visitors can be treated with disdain by chardonnay-clutching resort guests.
Here, however, the day tripper is celebrated. ‘‘Welcome to island time’’ was the greeting as we stepped off the catamaran.
The water was all-too-inviting to settle in at our private cabana.
We headed back out along the jetty to jump in; which was bath-like in temperature.
The coral around the island, like most reefs around the world, are bleached – and the snorkelling is a little lacking, but still enjoyable.
You can also take to paddleboarding or kayaking through the perfectly turquoise waters; it’s all included in the price.
There is a second reason you shouldn’t miss Malamala: the food.
The kitchen is run by Fiji’s celebrity chef Lance Seeto; we met him after he’d just returned from a trip to the highlands of Kabisi to source fresh goat for his legendary pie.
Lance believes in sourcing everything local, whether it’s fresh lobster from the Yasawa Islands to dried chillies from Lomolomo.
We had the hard task of tasting seven of his best dishes, from his pickled ginger and roasted sesame fried chicken to citrus and coconut marinated raw fish – the food is easily some of the best in Fiji.
The feast concluded with his ‘‘happy ending’’ – a golden orb of fried caramel icecream, fresh honeycomb, white chocolate dust and a cardamom chocolate sauce. It was the happiest of endings.
Except there was one slight downer – we had to leave, as the ferry pulled up at 5.15pm. It’s tempting to hide and see if you can spend a night like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway, which was filmed on a nearby island.
But the good news is your ticket is valid for an entire week – meaning you
Malamala is only 25 minutes from Denarau, although it feels like another world.
can use the island as much as you want for an extra 7 days, you just need to pay $50 for the return bus and ferry trip each extra day you want to use the island. It was a happy ending after all.
❚ The writer was a guest of Fiji Airways and Tourism Fiji.