La Digue by bike: the island with almost no cars

La Digue is the third of the main Seychelles islands, and the first thing you notice when you get off the ferry is what is missing: cars. There are barely any. The island runs on bicycles, and within an hour of arriving we had rented two and joined everyone else.

It changes how the place feels immediately. No traffic, no engines, just the click of gears and people pedalling between beaches in no particular hurry. The island is small enough that a bike is all you need, and big enough that you can spend days exploring it on one.

We rode everywhere. Down to Source d'Argent before dawn with the birds going mad in the trees. Across to the wild side of the island, Grand Anse and the beaches past it, where the waves come in hard and the crowds thin out the further you push. Out to a takeaway on the edge of the village for the best meal of the trip. Everything on La Digue happens at bike speed, and bike speed turns out to be exactly right.

Some of it is properly hot work. The climbs through the jungle to the wilder beaches are not nothing, and you arrive soaked. But you also stop whenever you want, for a juice, for a swim, for a cold drink at a shack by the road, in a way you never would in a car.

You could see La Digue from a tour boat in an afternoon. Renting a bike and living at its pace for a couple of days is the whole point of the island. It is the most relaxed I felt on the entire trip.