The journey from London to Sark, although not a long one, is what we might call a full-spectrum travel experience. You start at Gatwick in that great symbol of the modern world, a sleek British Airways jet. As the miles unwind en route to your destination, the means of transport regress. At Jersey, you swap the leather seats and the smart cabin crew for a tiny, bright yellow 1960s biplane, sitting on fold-down benches behind the pilot's shoulder. There follows, in swift succession, a taxi, a small boat, a tractor-trailer, and finally the ultimate lo-fi conveyance, a horse and cart.
The trip is a deliberate, even necessary, decompression procedure for the tricky business of travelling through time as well as space. On arrival, Sark turns out to be a colour version of those picture books you can buy showing what your town looked like in the 1920s: the same unmade roads, the same horses and carriages, the same little cottages, the same people going about their business largely on foot.
There are no cars on this island, and never have been. Instead, there are 61 horses and a bicycle outside every house. None is ever locked. You can leave your bike in the street for weeks and it will certainly be there when you get back. There are no police on the island, and never have been, only a couple of part-time volunteer constables. There are no civil servants, and never have been, apart from a tourism officer. There is no income tax. There is no government. Because Sark's politics are also from the 20s - the 1520s.
The island, and in theory everyone who lives on it too, is the personal property of one Michael Beaumont, the Seigneur, or overlord, of Sark. Beaumont, an amiable 79-year-old former aircraft engineer, inherited the place - and the people - from his grandmother, but does not, it must be said, quite live up to the ruthless-dictator template. He amuses visitors by displaying in his downstairs toilet letters bearing all the erroneous titles by which correspondents have addressed him: the "Sir of Sark," the "King and Queen of Sark," the "Lord of the Manor, His Grace Michael Beaumont" and, best of all, "JM Beaumont, Head Gardener".
Whatever you want to call him, however, Beaumont is the boss and Sark is the last feudal state in Europe. There are no freehold properties, only leases, or "tenancies", whose owners must pay the Seigneur a tax, called a treizieme when they buy. The tenancies are inviolable: hence the island's spectacularly undisturbed nature.
This is a politically incorrect thing to say but, as a tourist at least, I absolutely love backwardness. It's picturesque. It's got character. Not that I dislike the infinity-pool-and-complimentary-fruit-basket branch of the holiday industry, of course, but I was far more excited to discover on Sark a place where they still have £1 notes. Deep inside many of us, there is a small corner that remembers the comforting Enid Blyton stories of our childhoods, with its well-bred fantasy world of secret beaches and non-monosodium glutamate picnics. That world may never have existed, but you can find a very acceptable facsimile of it on Sark.
For most visitors, the island is a day-trip destination, but the true magic comes from staying the night. After the 6 o'clock boat has gone, you have the place pretty much to yourself. And there's a surprising amount to see - it will take about an hour to walk from one end to the other, or 20 minutes by bike. You can chat to total strangers you meet on the way, if you like.
Most of the land is a high plateau, raised up from the sea by some of the British Isles' most spectacular cliffs. Cycling along, on a sunny day, you can see across the blue waters of the Channel for 25 miles, all the way to France. The lanes have white asphalt surfaces and birds flitting in and out of the hedgerows. The only thing to watch out for is horse dung and the occasional tractor. Every so often, as you go, there is a small roadside tea house or a gallery selling art. In spring, you can wake up to find that the island has been covered overnight with thousands of migrating birds. The crossing from the main body of the island to the southern section, Little Sark, is on a high, exciting causeway, 150m long and 3m wide, threading across the spine of sheer, spiky cliffs. On one side, across rough white-flecked water, the Channel Islands are laid out before you: first Brecqhou, Sark's immediate neighbour, then Herm, then Guernsey. Look down, and amid the waves crashing into La Grande Greve Bay you will see islanders in waders, catching their supper, or yours. Climb below, using a near-vertical staircase, and you will find a beautiful deserted beach.
