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Beaches and Islands
‘Life’s a beach’, the saying goes, and it’s certainly uppermost on many people’s minds when they’re choosing where to go on holiday. But the word ‘beach’ can mean so many different things to different people, from the gently lapped shores of Thailand’s Krabi coast to the challenging surf strands of Queensland in Australia, the natural dramatic coast of Alaska to the city beaches of Sydney Harbour and Cape Town. Add our islands to the menu and you’ve got the drop-dead gorgeous lagoons of the South Sea islands and the five star Indian Ocean resort beaches of Mauritius, the Great Barrier Reef islands of Lizard and Bedarra and the Seychelles among the multitude of options. And when you tire of just lounging on the sun bed, Bridge & Wickers can arrange all manner of coastal activities, including sailing, diving, camel riding, turtle watching, cruising, 4 by 4 driving, kayaking and superb dining.
On the outskirts of Cape Town, Camps Bay is a place for white sand, trendy cafés and a Riviera-style atmosphere, Noordhoek for riding across a vast expanse of sand and surfing and Boulders Beach for little coves and penguins. Zanzibar’s east coast beckons with powder-soft sand and fabulous reefs and the golden sands of Mauritius offer superb resort hotels and an enormous choice of water sports. The granite boulders on the beaches of Madagascar’s Masoala Peninsula are reminiscent of Seychelles. You will see donkeys transporting goods along the beaches of Lamu, women gathering seaweed in Zanzibar, turtles nesting and hatching from Maputaland to the Kenya coast, jungle-clad mountains rising from Lake Tanganyika and timeless dhows sailing the waters of Lake Victoria as fish eagles soar overhead. What we can’t offer is crowded beaches or shingle.
In Australia not all ‘life’s a beach,’ but you might easily be persuaded otherwise! Most of the population lives within a 20 minute drive of the coast, so it’s hardly surprising that the beach is so deeply embedded in Aussie culture.
Not only does Australia have more beaches than any other country - more than 7,000, both on the mainland and the scores of islands from tiny Wilson in the Great Barrier Reef to the untouched wilderness of Tasmania - but they’re also among the sandiest, silkiest and whitest on the planet.
These are the beaches that dreams are made of. Few places in the world come close to matching the perfect sands and seas of the South Pacific islands, with a backdrop modelled on the Garden of Eden. And when you tire of doing very little you can pick up your book, i-pod and suncream and slowly pad back to your room, one with a view of the ocean, and wallow in that sense of wellbeing that comes from sharing your particular slice of paradise with just a handful of others.
Of course you’ll find peaches of beaches. But what will really raise your heartbeat is just how spectacular the shores of New Zealand are for memorable walks, for watching wildlife and for simply filling the frame of your camera. We’ve singled out three classic coastal corners – the Abel Tasman National Park, the Bay of Islands and the Coromandel, each one a world ranking stretch of shoreline.
Take your pick from high profile islands such as Phuket and Koh Samui in Thailand to several remarkable stretches of mainland coast, including the squeaky white sands and island studded horizon of Krabi in Thailand and the yet to be discovered beaches of Southern Vietnam. We’ve also included the gorgeous Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok and Malaysia’s Lombok.
From the fabled Inside Passage on the Pacific shores to the wildly eroded, highly tidal Atlantic seaboard, Canada’s coastline will send your camera into digital overdrive. So will its marine life, with shots of whales’ tales likely to figure prominently in the holiday album.
