The Six Senses Resort, Fiji, has a remarkable setting. Some 16 miles off Fiji’s Port Denerau, it is one of the Mamanuca islands (Tom Hanks filmed Castaway just a couple of islands away). It’s a coral atoll with a perfect beach, pristine turquoise waters that not only boast stunning coral, they have a team, Coral Gardeners, there who are actually planting it.
The concept is, both here and in Moorea in French Polynesia, by continually planting new coral and protecting the existing ones, they can defeat the decline of this extraordinarily important marine resource. In fact, they might be better named Coral Farmers as corals are actually animals, not plants at all! The work they are doing, though, is indisputably important and all part of Six Senses’ sustainability programme.
You are rather well sustained yourself and if anything is needed you only have to ask your appropriately named GEM (guest experience manager). Ours was Iva who arranged everything we needed – choice of restaurants, treatments, travel arrangements – by WhatsApp, so no need to troop round to reception.
If you’re not put off by long haul or you want a stay in paradise to add on to a trip to NZ or Oz, you couldn’t go wrong with Six Senses. The bures (villas) are vast and exquisite, thatched in traditional style, fronting the beach and each with its own pool, garden and path down to the beach and the lagoon where you can snorkel, learn to dive, kayak or just stroll along perfect sand. There is every creature comfort you can imagine inside including indoor and outdoor bathrooms, mood lighting and plenty of tech. The food is delicious, very local and healthy – and the menus even tell you which dishes offer the right nutrients for detoxing, fitness or sleep.
With this kind of approach, it’s not surprising they have a rather wonderful spa. There are saunas and steam rooms, as well as plunge pools of different temperatures. And, of course, there are all manner of treatments. The first one I chose – ideal for weary travellers – was a holistic massage with coconut oil, scented with frangipani, a smell so impossibly and headily exotic, it could only ever have come from the South Seas.
My therapist, Nancy, was something of a magician. She was certainly one of the most intuitive massage therapists I’ve come across. There were wonderful long soothing strokes but there were, too, long pauses, almost as if her fingertips were listening, reading what it was that my body required. Sometimes there was more pressure, though one particularly recalcitrant knot in my neck as soothed away by gentle but persistent strokes and somehow disappeared completely. As I say, something of a magician then.
Nancy also used a Tibetan singing bowl at the start and finish of my treatment. Moving it around in the space above my head, I could feel the reverberations through my body and, when she placed it on the small of my back, waves of relaxation passed through me.
In keeping with their wellness approach here, you can have a very revealing consultation with their ayurvedic doctor. Dr Aju is from Kerala and does a series of tests (pulses, checking your eyes and tongue) as well as asking lots of questions. I was, though, delighted to discover that not only were all my vital organs in fine fettle, I was biologically ten years younger than my chronological age.
It was then with something of a spring in my step that I joined Nancy again at the Alchemy Bar to make myself some Fijian potions. All of the ingredients come from the island’s garden and wild plants and are prepared according to local recipes. So my body scrub was ground brown sugar (I had a mortar and pestle to make it turn almost to powder) mixed with dried coconut and then coconut milk to make it into a paste. The face scrub was ground papaya seeds mixed with honey and chopped mint leaves. All surprisingly effective and obviously good enough to eat.
The only concern from Dr Aju was that I didn’t get enough sleep or mental relaxation. Frankly, a good solution for that would be Fiji itself with its pristine waters, superb marine life and glorious climate. His suggestions for my return might be a little more difficult to fulfil, though. Barefoot walking for 20 minutes in sand or mud could be slightly tricky in central London…
For more information about Six Senses Resort, Fiji, including details of the spa retreats and programmes, please visit www.sixsenses.com.
