Sir Bani Yas Island is the perfect getaway from downtown Abu Dhabi, finds Tom Otley
Fifteen minutes after getting off the aircraft, we were watching a herd of giraffe feeding on acacia trees by the side of the road. Large black tongues flicked out to grab the sharp spikes of the leaves and yank them from the tree, giant mouths munching from side to side.
We rushed towards them, anxious to take the perfect photo, but they just stared back at us, waiting for us to slow down and match the measured pace of the island.
Sir Bani Yas Island is only 9km from the mainland of Abu Dhabi, but whether you get there by air via the shuttle service of Rotana Jet or drive two hours south from the city centre and then take the boat, when you arrive you will feel you’ve come to a true desert hideaway.
There is little development here – just three luxury hotels run by Anantara, all designed to blend into the surroundings of the 87 sq km island.
What makes Sir Bani Yas special is that most of it – some 4,100 hectares – is a nature reserve, the Arabian Wildlife Park. The last human inhabitants left in the 1930s when the water from natural springs ran out and pearl fishing hit hard times, and it was deserted for decades until it became a favourite place of the then Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan in the early 1970s.
He reintroduced desalinated water via a pipe from the mainland, started planting trees – olive, acacia, tamarind, cedar and ghaf (the national tree of the UAE) – and then gradually added species of wildlife threatened by extinction elsewhere in the world, including African and Arabian oryx, Indian black-back gazelle, cheetahs, red deer, mountain sheep, and even six giraffes from the Sudan.
This “greening of the island”, as it is referred to by the 300-plus workers in the park (another 250 are employed in the three resorts), means that some of the animals can be reintroduced to the mainland once numbers are sufficient.
For those visiting the UAE, particularly Abu Dhabi or Dubai, the island makes an ideal two- or three-day add-on trip, and will convince you there is something else to the emirates apart from conspicuous consumption.
It’s a very tranquil location, with all three Anantara resorts being small, yet different in what they offer. The Desert Islands Resort and Spa is the largest, with 64 rooms and suites – it has a watersports centre, tennis courts, several restaurants and a conference centre.
A five-minute drive away is the more intimate Anantara Al Yamm villa resort (no children under 12) – just 30 villas on a sweep of beach and a single restaurant. About to open as we went to press, there is also the 30-villa Anantara Al Sahel villa resort in the Arabian Wildlife Park.
The properties are all five-star, and it’s a rare hour when someone isn’t offering you Arabian coffee, dates or bottles of water. They also offer an activities programme focused on the main draw of the island – the flora and fauna.
Options include drives in 4x4 vehicles to see the giraffes, gazelles, hyenas, oryx and cheetahs in their natural environment, wildlife walks, mountain biking, horse riding, archery, deep-sea fishing, kayaking and diving (apparently there are sunken cars to explore).
There’s also the option to visit an archaeological excavation site close to the resort, where the remains of a sixth-century Christian Nestorian monastery were found in the 1990s.
What stays with you after a visit, however, is the sense of peace. The island as it is today is an artificial creation, it is true. Without constant irrigation of every tree, the whole reserve would soon return to a true desert island, but in other ways the hand of man is a light touch.
Whether stopping during your hike to look out over the red dunes towards the Arabian Gulf, or turning your back on the island and strolling along the white coral sand of the beaches, it’s the sound of silence that really resonates with you.
Waking one morning, I looked out to a patch of lawn by the villa and about a dozen gazelle were grazing, the haze of spray from the sprinklers making them shimmer like an oasis mirage. It was one of several slightly other-worldly experiences that gave my two-night stopover the restorative effect of a much longer stay.
al-yamm.anantara.com, desertislands.com
