Natadola Beach

Natadola is on the western side of Viti Levu, Fiji's main island, about an hour from Nadi airport. It is a crescent of pale coral sand with a reef offshore, and it is generally reckoned the best swimming beach on the mainland — which matters, because most of Viti Levu's shoreline is mangrove or reef flat rather than sand.

The land tenure is the substantive fact. Around ninety per cent of land in Fiji is iTaukei land, held communally under customary title by clan groups and administered by the iTaukei Land Trust Board; it cannot be sold, only leased. Natadola is on such land, and the village at the back of the beach has a direct interest in what is built and what visitors do. Horse rides, vendors and access arrangements all run through that structure.

The beach shelves gently into clear water with a reef break well offshore that surfers reach by boat. Swimming close in is easy and calm; there is a current at the northern end and no lifeguard service. The sand is fine and pale rather than white. Horse riding on the sand is run by the village and has been for decades; the animals are a common sight along the beach in the late afternoon.

Development is a resort at one end and a village at the other, with a long public stretch between them. Fiji has no general public-access law of the kind found in Hawaii, so in practice the arrangement rests on custom and on the village. The Mamanuca islands offshore are where the postcard beaches are, reached by catamaran from Port Denarau, and the Coral Coast east of here has the reef and the resorts.

The best swimming on Viti Levu, on land held under customary title by the village behind it. Small charges for parking and horses go to that village and are normal. An hour from the airport, which makes it the usual first or last day. The postcard Fiji is the Mamanucas and Yasawas, out west by catamaran.