After breakfast, and after dipping in and out of the pool like a couple of restless otters in the burning heat of the morning sun, we were ready to change it up and explore Paradise Beach – which stretched for 1.5 kilometres beneath the steep and rocky clifftops of the estate.

Vicky insisted on a tour of the grounds beforehand and so after marvelling at the epically beautiful working gardens, from which all ingredients for each carefully crafted meal are sourced, and with all the hallmarks of gentry – paddy field, coconut grove, tennis court, cricket pitch and step well – we were dropped at the end of the pebbled trail that would take us down to the shoreline.

When we reached a tall, wooden and very ornate gate in the middle of the forest we knew we were on the right track and quickly scampered through, ready for the sea breeze to cool us off from our short-but-searingly-hot trek.

Guided by the measured footsteps being taken by an elder woman just ahead of us, who effortlessly glided down the long, narrow path with a big bag of laundry perched on her head, we wound down through scrub and rock – all along the way seeing the less pretty side of rural India – littered plastic water bottles, coffee cups and tissue paper (the Mumbai clean-up message sadly not quite reaching Paradise Beach yet).

The beach scene could easily have been torn straight from a Lonely Planet circa 1990 (or Golden Bay, New Zealand, in 2020). Tucked amongst the rocks and sand, makeshift campsites belonging to hordes of middle-aged, dread-locked, sun-kissed tourists, long forgotten by the Indian Bureau of Immigration, and skin as good as the leather of my beau coops, they looked like they’d been parked up in their idyllic setting for eternity – with only a handful of rupees to rub together but enough to get by on the coconut juice, maggi noodles and samosas available from a sole vendor, his shack hidden amongst the trees (out of which he sprang like a jack-in-a-box every few minutes to sing out his tune of wares for sale).

Mostly British and South American, but all scantily clad and floating round the sand practicing their festival-circuit fire-eating and hooping, happy hippie girls were seemingly living the dream on what was once one of India’s most gorgeously remote getaway spots. Although young goats and village dogs roamed free here without a care in the world, it was a time capsule we agreed made us slightly uncomfortable.

We were quick to scramble back up the rockface to the smiles, tranquillity (and martinis) that welcomed us with open arms from behind the secret forest estate gate!