If I could only take one more trip in my life, it would be here

On my desk there’s a framed photo of the beach, and a small dish with sand as fine as talcum powder. At least once a day my fingers are drawn to the sand, a tangible reminder of a tiny part of the world that holds a huge place in my heart.

“Happy” doesn’t even begin to describe the emotion I feel about Île des Pins, the small island at the base of New Caledonia. Île des Pins is the most beautiful place in the world, the most tranquil, the most unspoiled, with the best beaches, the clearest water, the whitest sand. It is my favourite place in the world, my mental sanctuary. If I could take only one more trip in my life, it would be here.

I first went to Île des Pins as a teenager on a holiday with my parents and younger brother. We were regular visitors to New Caledonia as my grandfather was born in the capital of Noumea, only a 2½-hour flight from Sydney.

Our holidays were primarily to see my great-aunt, a Melanesian-French woman named Augustine Pidjot who was known to everyone as Tantine.

Noumea has its charms, but Île des Pins is the essence of South Pacific beauty. On that first visit when I was 15, we walked along near-empty arcs of beaches lined with pine trees, drank coconut milk, fed fish with baguettes, dined on the local dish of bougna (chicken, sweet potato and taro cooked in banana leaves) at a beachfront restaurant, and swam for hours.

It was such an idyllic day, but I remember feeling worried on the flight back to Noumea. Surely, there was no way Île des Pins could remain so pristine and undeveloped. Would I find high-rise hotels and overtourism on my next visit? Would my future children have the chance to experience it the way I had?

No and yes.

I’ve been drawn back to Île des Pins at least 15 times and am relieved to say that each visit has been as good as the last. There has been little change aside from a few more locally owned gites designed to blend into the trees. One of the reasons is the tight control that the island’s indigenous owners have on any development. Most of the island is customary land. Cruise ships seem to visit less frequently and at the discretion of the tribal chief – if the tribe needs to attend an important funeral, the island closes to tourist ships.

This is not the island to choose if you want nightlife, vibrant bars, an array of cafes and restaurants. It’s a place to embrace the quiet, with little more to do than swim and walk along the beach.

Over the years we’ve stayed nearly everywhere on the island – family huts with my great-aunt where the nightly meal was fish and rice; in beachfront gites during cyclones where we weren’t allowed to leave the hut for fear of a flying coconut; and at Le Méridien hotel (currently closed), near one of the island’s natural beauties, Oro Bay, a natural pool which is like swimming in an aquarium.

It’s impossible not to feel possessive of the island after so many visits and memories. Like the time a holiday coincided with a ship full of raucous young Aussies on a schoolies cruise. I counted down the minutes until the tenders returned to the ship at 3pm, and imagined the island breathing a sigh of relief along with me.

My three children were lucky enough to go to Île des Pins when they were very young and love it as much as me – snorkelling to see reef fish, walking the “deep dark forest” between Kuto and Kanumera bays.

On our last day trip to Île des Pins, they were teenagers, about the age I was on my first visit. Apart from some seasickness on the rocky two-hour ferry trip from Noumea, that day will go down in family history as one of the best ever.

We travelled as a big family group and set up our picnic at cousin Michelle’s small house near the beach. My son’s phone was forgotten for the day as he and Michelle’s 10-year-old grandson, Ezekiel, ran off, barefoot and shirtless, returning hours later with tales of sea snakes and daring jumps from a rock overhanging the aquamarine water.

Île des Pins is never far from my thoughts, but after all these years, I’ve stopped worrying that it won’t remain a paradise. The Kunie people have it under control. It will always be their island home, and mine too.