Blogs from Waterberg, Namibia, Africa

Waterberg Plateau Park, Namibia, 29 August 2012 After a 4 hour drive over a good road (roads in Namibia were excellent), we arrived at the Waterberg Plateau Park. This was almost completely surrounded by an escarpment. It was beautiful. Waterberg Plateau Park is located on the Waterberg Plateau in Northern Namibia. The nearest major city is Otjiwarongo about 68 kilometres to the west of the park, by conventional roads. The park is 40,549 hectares in area. The term "Waterberg" refers to the fact that sandstone of the plateau absorbs moisture which runs off on the southeast side of the plateau as springs, hence, the name "Waterberg" or water mountain. The vegetation of the plateau is green subtropical dry woodland. This contrasts the acacia that grows at the base of the plateau. We saw that the north ... read more

Es ist Mittwoch und wir machen uns auf den Weg zum Waterberg Plateau, einem riesigen "platten" Bergplateau im wasserreichen Hereroland im Nordosten des Landes. Hier fand 1904 die entscheidende Schlacht im Herero-Aufstand gegen die deutschen Kolonialherren statt, in dessen Folge mehr als die Hälfte des Hererovolkes sein Leben ließ. Am zweiten Sonntag im August, also in wenigen Tagen, feiern die Herero traditionell mit einem fröhlichen Fest ihre Helden von damals, die die Schlacht und insbesondere die anschließende Flucht durch die wasserarme Wüste überlebten, und damit das Fortbestehen ihres Volkes gewährten. Über Tsuneb und Otavi, einem winzigen Dorf, wo wir in einem Kaffeshop einen Guavensaft trinken und prompt einen namibischen Steuerfahnder kennenlernen, der in Frankfurt ausgebildet wurde und uns stolz alle deutschen Fussballnationalspieler von 1974 aufzählt, erreichen wir Otjiwa... read more

Sunday dawned bright and clear, and I crawled out of bed far earlier than I’d have liked. Nominally a day of rest, some jobs still need to be done, and today I had agreed to drive our new cheetah keeper; Kate; on the rounds of all our pens, checking for damage to the fences. From the office it’s 24 km to the big enclosure on our neighbouring farm of Bellebenno, and the road wends its way through some lovely scenery. Away to the right rises the deep red of the Waterberg Plateau, while all around us are the browns and greens of the acacia bush. Ahead on the road we see a steenbok scamper away from the throaty roar of our old diesel, while other, larger antelope, raise their heads and glare at the interruption to ... read more

We have left Windhoek and headed north to Waterberg Plateau. It was mainly tarred road all the way and as we predicted there was not much traffic about. We had a short drive on gravel roads and as a result the car now has an ominous sounding rattle! The camp is really nice and we are staying in a very swish little bungalow. As there are lots of paths around the park we have spent our time walking. We took a trip up to the top of the plateau although we nearly did not make it as we got scared by a group of baboons on the way up! They suddenly appeared out of nowhere and were howling. They were much bigger than we thought and we were not sure how vicious they were. It would ... read more

Our next stop was Waterberg Plateau Park back down on the B1 road. Waterberg Plateau is a huge plateau - huge! It dominates the landscape. We had planned to do some walking trails here and enjoy the outdoors. The weather was fine by now with no sign of rain. We were due to stay at Waterberg for two nights, our last two nights in Namibia, but decided that one would be enough. This was because although the plateau was magnificent, the actual accommodation was so close to it, you could not really sit back and enjoy the view. The accommodation was a little basic compared to what we had been used to, and so we decided that we wanted to spend our last night in Namibia somewhere else. So although the pool was lovely, and I ... read more