USP Set in a new resort opened last year on 230 hectares of reclaimed sugar plantations on the west coast of the island, this is a model spa with everything just as it should be.

AMBIENCE The spa comprises a series of cream coloured buildings with thatched roofs and marble and slate floors clustered on the edge of a lagoon. There are 12 treatment rooms, each with its own mini changing room and indoor and outdoor showers. Some of the rooms are double-sized with an L-shaped panel of glass overlooking directly the green-blue lagoon.

The cool, contemporary feel to the spa is best illustrated by the bright, white marble tea bar where immaculate displays of Just Pure products bedeck opposite walls. The glassy relaxation room has a spirally ceiling, is scattered with hippy paperbacks and has the slight feel of an upmarket dentist’s waiting room.

The spa is open until 10pm every day, which is great for those who don’t wish to miss valuable golfing/tanning/diving time.

The new hotels in Mauritius

Jane Knight and her three-year-old test out the new luxury hotels on this wintersun island

• The best hotels in Mauritius

• Get spiritual in Mauritius

8 best holistic spas

Sunday Times Travel Magazine travel experts have scoured the globe for spas that help you embrace nature

• Five retreat spas

BACKGROUND

• Five affordable detox retreats

• Top 5 exotic detox retreats

• Six spas for skin treatments

Related Links

• Get spiritual in Mauritius

EXPERIENCE Guests are greeted at reception by a row of smiling women and led through to the relaxation area. It’s a short but scorching walk in the sun over some decking to the double treatment room where we shower down and change into the African-style lime or yellow light cotton robes with diamond patterns and matching slippers.

After a cooling foot bath, I sniffed out an uplifting essence made from coconut oil and local flowers and left the next 90 minutes to Joelle, one of the spa’s six therapists, who was wielding a foot long sugar-cane pipe. It seemed appropriate on the resort’s site to have a sugar-cane treatment, which combined an acupressure massage with rolling the sugar-cane over my body causing pain in my foot and shin and leaving me feeling like a lump of white pastry. Joelle, however, checked regularly with me for pain and temperature thresholds.

I didn’t get to experience the Golfer’s Restorative Massage but playing the Ernie Els designed course in the late afternoon with its canopies of crimson Flamboyant trees and back nine flanked by the Indian Ocean was therapy in itself.

PRODUCTS Tailor-made for the spa includes African inspired Aw Lake and locally produced Four Seasons Originals. Just Pure, from Europe, is produced and used to correspond with the different types of energy emitted by the moon in each phase, while the Ayurvedic Sundari products hail from switched-on California, and are a nod, perhaps, to the spa’s American director.

FOOD Suitably spa-rtan: fresh lemongrass (citronelle) tea in dark porcelain pots with Australian honey, and bowls of green and red apples. The resort has three restaurants including Bambou, which fused different Asian styles; Aquapazza, which served good, simple Italian fare, including freshly-caught Bayone fish with salsa verde, and Le Beauchamp for gourmet fare with a creative flair- the lobster menu featured carpaccio, a chocolately bisque and fresh lobster served with exotic fruit and rice. All used fresh ingredients served al-fresco by super-attentive staff but were easily a match for London prices.

IN CROWD The spa had a settled quietness about it. We only saw a Geordie couple, who emerged dazed and praising their treatments, and a couple of well-polished middle-aged European women. No doubt plenty of honeymooners make good use of the roomy and private spa pavilions.

WALLET WATCH A 90-minute Sugar Therapy Massage costs £120; Mauritian Fusion Therapy costs about £78 for an hour as does a Golfer’s Restorative Massage. There’s a good choice of facials and men’s treatments. Spa journeys from one to five days can be scheduled

Air Mauritius flies from Heathrow to Mauritius. Economy class return fares start from £535 per adult (including taxes and fuel surcharge) and business class return fares start from £1,595 per adult. The airline refurbished its business class seating last year, but it’s still got a way to go until it matches the efficient luxury of rival airlines. That said it is a very comfortable way to start and end a special holiday.

For further information and bookings call 020 8834 5800 or visit www.airmauritius.com.

NEED TO KNOW Four Seasons Resort at Anahita, Beau Champ, Mauritius (+230 402 3100; www.fourseasons.com/mauritius);

Times recommends

• Overlanding then and now
• Live Q&A: ski fitness and injury
• Get the right payment card and deny Ryanair its hefty fee