United Arab Emirates
Sir Bani Yas Island
A year after the first oryx arrived here, the species went extinct in the wild.
The dawn drive rolls through tawny scrub as Arabian oryx lift their heads in twos and threes, white coats catching first light, giraffe browsing beyond them. By mid-morning you can be standing in the excavated rooms of a monastery whose monks fished this same shore thirteen centuries ago.
Sheikh Zayed declared Sir Bani Yas a nature reserve in 1971 and had a handful of Arabian oryx shipped over from the Empty Quarter; the following year the species was declared extinct in the wild, which makes every herd on the island descended from a rescue that arrived just in time. More than 17,000 animals now roam the 87 square kilometres, from oryx and sand gazelle to giraffe, eland and cheetah, watched over on guided 4x4 drives. The island's other astonishment came out of the ground in the early 1990s: a church and monastery from the seventh and eighth centuries, with plaster crosses and courtyard houses, the UAE's only known ancient Christian site, its recovered glass and ceramics tracing trade that reached the Indian Ocean. Arrival belongs to the ritual, by boat from the Jebel Dhanna jetty or by seaplane over the shallows.
Couple
Take the earliest wildlife drive, when oryx cross the tracks in cool light, and give the afternoon to a kayak on flat Gulf water and dinner within earshot of the shore.
Family
Children get a real safari without the long-haul flight: giraffe and gazelle from an open 4x4, snorkelling off the beach after lunch, and a 1,300-year-old monastery that turns the day into a story.
- More than 17,000 free-roaming animals, from Arabian oryx and gazelle to giraffe and cheetah, share the 87-square-kilometre island.
- Sheikh Zayed declared the island a nature reserve in 1971, the year before the Arabian oryx went extinct in the wild.
- A seventh- to eighth-century church and monastery, the UAE's only known ancient Christian site, was unearthed here in the early 1990s.
- Calm Gulf water rings the island, with kayaking, snorkelling, riding and mountain biking run from the shore.
Savannah Grill sends out venison medallions and flame-grilled steaks, the menu a nod to the herds beyond the fence.
At Amwaj the local catch leads: grilled hammour and kingfish eaten close enough to hear the water.
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