Private island isolation
Back to basics in Vanuatu
It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I envisaged a luxury tropical island getaway. Sure, I’m on a horse, bareback, in a bikini. So far, so idyllic.
But it’s pouring with rain. We’re heading into the ocean. And I have absolutely no idea what to do with my horse, which I’m about to go swimming with.
“Just lean forward, grab the mane, the horse knows what to do,”, our rotund and cheery horse wrangler Johnny yells back at me. I have no choice but to do what he says. Mercifully, within seconds my horse is paddling through the ocean, his powerful muscles pumping away beneath me. It feels absolutely magical.
It’s not a typical island experience, no, but that’s the thing about Ratua Private Island. This eco-friendly retreat, that sits just south of Vanuatu’s largest island Espiritu Santo, isn’t your standard island getaway.
There are no pools and no hot tubs here, the grounds aren’t perfectly manicured, and there aren’t staff buzzing around you 24/ 7.
Our bungalow, one of just 10 on the 60-hectare island, is a 200-year-old teak structure.
It was transported by Ratua’s French billionaire owner from Java, when he transformed the island from coconut plantation to not-for-profit eco resort (any profits Ratua makes are given to neighbouring islands for health and education) six years ago.
Inside, there’s no TV, no air-conditioning, no glass in the windows, and no locks on the doors.
What there is, however, is an abundance of style and charm, evident in our bungalow’s vaulted ceilings and canopied bed, exotic antiques, artworks of local tribespeople and artfully placed, locally woven bags.
We spend our days lazing on the wooden deck, swimming and snorkelling over the coral reef, which is filled with colourful fish and patterned sea snakes. All the while we’re not visited by a soul, and barely see another guest.
This sense of design is mimicked in the ‘yacht club’: three large wooden bungalows kitted out with antiques and rustic furnishings including antique masks, chunks of coral and cow hide and leather-covered wooden chairs, that forms the centerpiece of the resort and contains the restaurant, bar and lounge. It’s rustic chic at its very best.
Ratua’s approach is an unusual one, but one that was taken very consciously to help guests return to nature, and to themselves. It works. Outside the double wooden doors of our bungalow lies our very own stretch of private beach framed by two giant native trees. My husband and I spend our days lazing on the wooden deck, swimming in the shimmering sea and snorkelling over the shallow coral reef, which is filled with vibrant coral blooms, colourful fish and patterned sea snakes. All the while we’re not visited by a soul, and barely see another guest. Hot tubs and air-con be damned; to me this is the greatest luxury of all.
On our third day, we take a boat over to neighbouring Malo Island and kayak through mangrove-flanked tunnels to one of Vanuatu’s famous blue holes.
There, we don’t see a single other traveller – an upside to the after-effects of last year’s tropical Cyclone Pam, which wreaked havoc on this Pacific archipelago.
We swim in the warm waters of the deep natural spring, surrounded by cliffs cloaked in green vines, and climb enormous native trees. When we return to Ratua, we relax over a lazy barbecue lunch of grilled fish, salad and local Tusker beer on the beach, and take a massage in Ratua’s overwater treatment pavilion.
It opens out onto the swell of the sea, and is furnished with the most beautiful wooden bath I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Our afternoons are spent cycling along the island’s pebbly dirt tracks, passing forests of towering coconut palms, lush frangipani trees, big shaggy sheep and the island’s 20 glossy horses along the way.
A couple of times, we grab one of Ratua’s paddleboards (they also offer kayaks and snorkelling gear) and push out into the endless blue, exploring the Japanese shipwreck that pokes out of the water off the northern end of the island, and spotting the giant turtles that the area is famous for flapping beneath us like huge birds.
The highlight, though, comes one night when we take a night-time dip in the ocean under the moonless sky. We find the bath-warm water speckled with phosphorescence; it stirs around our bodies and lights up with liquid sparks.
There are dozens of beautiful places we could have explored around Ratua. We could have taken a boat to Pentecost Island to see Vanuatu’s famous land diving, where village men and boys make leaps of courage from rickety wooden towers with nothing but vines tied to their ankles, as a gift to the gods to ensure a bountiful yam harvest.
We could have headed to Tanna Island to see Mount Yasur, one of the world’s most accessible active volcanoes, where brave souls can walk right to the rim and peer down into its fiery belly.
We could have gone diving at Million Dollar Point off the coast of Espiritu Santo, among hundreds of tonnes of US military equipment, including Jeeps, bulldozers, trucks and more that were dumped at the end of World War 2.
But really, when you have a dreamy private island virtually all to yourself, that’s an intriguing mix of sophistication and simplicity and quite unlike any luxury island getaway you’ve experienced before, you don’t want to leave. We certainly didn’t, and we don’t regret a thing.