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The centrepiece of this immense park is Etosha Pan, a 5,000 sq km flat dust bowl, denuded of vegetation, that transforms into a vast shallow lake during the rainy season. The park is at its best, however, in the dry season, when the pan dries up and a series of fringing waterholes form the only source of drinking water for miles around, attracting prolific herds of wildlife, and providing easy snapping for keen wildlife photographers. A feature of Etosha that appealed to me is that the combination of affordable rest camps and good roads means it is one of the few great African parks easily explored on a self-drive basis. The wildlife is also very impressive and I had great sightings of black rhino, lion and elephant, despite visiting in the wet season, when animals tend to disperse outside the park’s boundaries. It was also exciting to see the black-faced impala, a distinctive subspecies endemic to the Namibia/Angola border area, and whose global population is estimated at around 1,000.
Herds in the Heat Haze
Namibia’s flagship park, Etosha, is easily one of the finest places in the world to watch wildlife, and one of my personal favourites. I’d recommend spending several days here. The park’s dominant feature is the 120km-wide Etosha Pan, a dramatic swathe of sunbaked salt fringed by unspoilt bush. Around the pan are waterholes, some of them man-made, which attract elephants, giraffes, antelopes, zebras and ostriches in impressive numbers. One waterhole, Okaukuejo in the southwest, is floodlit after dark; black rhinos sometimes drink here. Hyenas and lions are also frequently seen. The surrounding woodland harbours owls, falcons, warblers, hornbills and a host of other birds.
It’s a straightforward five-hour drive from Windhoek to Etosha, making this an easy destination for self-drive travellers as well as those on guided tours. There’s a good variety of accommodation both inside and outside the park.
The Great White Place
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a game-rich wilderness that stands proudly amongst the continent’s finest national parks. If you visit once, you’ll surely come back for more.Etosha, Best Visited in the Dry Winter Months
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away from me, as most black rhino tend to do. I guess, this is another place I need to get back to sometime.Black Rhinos, White Pans and Wildlife at Waterholes in Namibia’s Premier Park
Etosha is a “must-see” on any trip to Namibia. Covering nearly 23,000 sq km, almost a quarter of which is the silvery Etosha Pan, it’s home to over a hundred species of animals including most of the Big Five (except for buffalo) and is one of the best places to see the endangered black rhino. One magical evening at Okakuejo Rest Camp, sipping a glass of wine, we watched a black rhino and a white rhino drinking at the floodlit waterhole, both with tiny calves. Ten minutes later, two lionesses arrived followed by five playful cubs.
Etosha is the perfect destination for first time self-drivers. We spent three days there using the Park’s excellent maps, routes were clearly marked and we would park by waterholes waiting for wildlife to come to us. If this is to be your first self-drive, take a good field guide with you - although self-driving allows a lot of independence, you might miss the expert knowledge of driver/guides. It is possible to book guided game drives at the rest camps, so you could have the best of both worlds.
Keeping Watch at the Waterhole
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Two other places you might wish to consider staying at are Onkoshi, a camp with stunning views across the Pan, and Dolomite Camp in western Etosha.My personal favourite is Ongava Tented Camp, set in a 300km2 wildlife reserve on the southern edge of the park. Maybe it’s because I saw an aardvark here in broad daylight!
Big Game Galore at Namibia’s Flagship Park
With the exception of buffalo, the Big 5 are all here. There’s probably nowhere better in Africa to see black rhinos. I’ve seen more lions here than anywhere else except the Serengeti. And to my mind the elephants are the biggest I’ve ever seen.
For the big game, Etosha is best visited in the cooler and bone dry winter months (roughly between May and October), when the waterholes become a bustling oasis in the otherwise parched landscape. The floodlit waterhole at the centrally-located Okaukuejo Camp is a special feature, though the camp itself, like various others in the park, is in need of a facelift.
Personally, I prefer the greener, hillier and less-visited western section
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of the park, which is a very good bet for black rhino sightings and the rare black-faced impala.Poking Around a Pan
Etosha is centred on a pan – a white, featureless, dry salt-bed that shimmers into distant horizons. The real beauty of this unique park lies in the ease of its wildlife viewing – sightings here are virtually guaranteed. Animals congregate around waterholes and it’s a case of putting your feet up and letting the wildlife come to you. I saw an intriguing collection of herd animals around the hole that I staked out, including the elegant gemsbok, wildebeest, springbok and elephants. Also in the park are giraffe, often seen as silhouettes travelling across the flat plains here in search of food. But Etosha’s biggest delight is the black rhino. One of Africa’s rarest mammals, I saw two at night at a waterhole close to an official camp. I was alone when I saw a large female emerge from the bush – she was joined a short time later by another and they had play fights around the water. It was one of my great wildlife highlights of Africa.
White Dust and Waterholes
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animals disperse and sightings become harder, but the lush new growth triggers a mass springbok lambing, and flamingos flock to the shallows of Fischer’s Pan.Life in the Heat Haze
Come in the dry season though and things are very different. Huge numbers of animals of all shapes and sizes congregate around water holes: elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions and endless zebra, oryx, kudu and springbok mean that the wildlife viewing is simply superb. To add to this, other huge plus points for Etosha are the ease of access, the decent road system and, compared to East Africa or Botswana, very affordable accommodations. All of this makes a self-drive
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budget safari to Etosha an easy and enjoyable prospect. In fact, this is arguably one of the best parks in Africa for a first – or tenth – safari.The Big White Pan
Etosha is Namibia’s jewel in the crown and should be on everyone’s itinerary when visiting this alluring country. Etosha means “great white place” and the vast calcrete pan dominates the reserve. Etosha is a photographer’s dream with the shimmering pan, golden grass and lilac-hued skies. In the dry season, there is lots of game with many elephant, zebra, gemsbok, lion and perhaps most special of all, black rhino. The dry season is particularly rewarding when a non-stop procession of animals visit the water holes, and you can spend hours just sitting in one place. The water holes in the public rest camps are illuminated at night, and it is magical sitting there waiting to see what will step out of the shadows onto the flood-lit stage.
I’ve also visited in the wet season, and although I only saw a single elephant, the pan was flooded and covered with pink flamingos. I will never forget watching the flamingos “dance”, strutting in formation to the left and right, like American line-dancers.
Etosha: Namibia’s Premier Park
This is one of my favorite parks in all of Africa. It was here that my children saw their first lions, gorging on a kill by a waterhole as gemsbok and impala watched nervously from the shallows nearby. Black rhinos, too, cavorting with one another at the waterholes at night, just like in Sir David Attenborough’s Africa series. Giraffes drinking as only giraffes can. Elephants turned ghostly white by the chalk-like dry season dust of Etosha. But in Etosha, for me it’s not just about wildlife, although that’s my primary barometer for any park. Instead it’s the combination of accessibility (most of the wildlife is easily accessible from the main campsites) with remoteness (it’s not difficult to escape the crowds, especially out in the park’s west). And I love the salt pans for their suggestion of eternity.
Exceptionally Good Game Viewing in Unusual Environments
Etosha means ‘Great White Place’ in the Herero language after the giant, parched and dazzlingly white Etosha Pan. I find this the perfect environment for silhouetting the animals – a lone wildebeest or herd of handsome gemsbok can be seen slowly crossing it or just standing as if mesmerized. The other highlight for me is the dozens of waterholes, ideal places to sit and watch a veritable ‘Noah’s Ark’ of species queue up to drink – skittish black-faced impala, giraffe comically bending towards the water, or a herd of thirsty elephant steadfastly marching over the horizon. I’ve always had the greatest of luck at the Okaukuejo floodlit waterhole. To see a pride of lion or a family of rhino amble from the darkness with their darting eyes glinting red or green in the eerie white light of the spotlights is a special treat. It’s no wonder people end up staying here all night.
Where the Wild Things Are
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In fact, our animal wish list was getting ticked off quickly, but it was the black rhino which proved most elusive. That was, until the very last day when a determined rhino barrelled out of the thick bush behind us almost colliding with our vehicle as we were driving out of the park and disappeared just as quickly into the bush on the other side of the road. Oh well, perhaps on our next visit!Sandy Plains and Starry Skies
Four of the Big Five inhabit Namibia's premier National Park (no buffalo), along with hyena, cheetah, bat-eared fox and honey badger, among others. Antelope can be spotted from afar on the sparsely vegetated, flat 'sandscape' whose dusty roads stretch far into the distance. In this arid park, animals congregate around the many waterholes, a great place to set up your camera and picnic for an afternoon. Some waterholes are easily accessible from camps and watching for animals at a floodlit pool after dark was a park highlight, even if we didn't really see much. Instead, we turned our eyes skywards and enjoyed a safari of the celestial kind.
Abundant Wildlife & a Vast Salt Pan
With its arid scrublands, the searing, barren expanses of Etosha Pan and rather impersonal rest camps, it’s easy to underestimate Etosha. Yet, allow some time to get to know the park and its appeal is guaranteed to grow. One of the main draws is convenient access to a truly impressive array of wildlife. Among the highlights are both black and white rhinos, as well as lions, especially in the park’s southern and eastern reaches. During the Dry season, elephant, giraffe, zebra, ostrich and a variety of antelope are almost guaranteed.
While the park rest camps get very full during the peak Dry season months, they offer fine camp-based wildlife watching. The waterhole next to Okaukuejo camp is especially well situated for observing the nighttime parade of thirsty animals coming to drink. Thanks to its easy tarmac access and a network of well-maintained roads, Etosha is well suited to self-drive safaris. The location also conveniently lends itself to combination itineraries with other areas of Namibia.
An Abundance of Life
One could easily assume that such an unforgiving location would be unable to support large amounts of wildlife, but this is far from the case thanks to the huge (and I do mean huge) salt-encrusted pan that dominates the landscape of this magnificent wildlife reserve.
This barren and sun-blasted plane (which has a surface area of 4,700km2, or 21% of the whole park) is typically as dry as British humor and looks rather like a great frozen ice sheet. It’s pure white and requires sunglasses to look at.
So how on earth does a barren, dusty, saline moonscape support such an abundance of big game? After all, Etosha is famous for its elephants and large herds of zebra.
Well, it’s all to do with water, and although Etosha seems scorched and mostly devoid of moisture, fresh H2O is pushed up to the margins of the pan, and thus, nobody goes thirsty.
The park authorities also maintain a series of pumped waterholes at strategic locations, such as right next to the rest camps of Okaukuejo, Halali, Namutoni, and Dolomite.
One of my favorite things to do in Etosha is to sit and watch the comings and goings at these waterholes, and I have never failed to be enchanted by sightings of black rhinos, elephants, lions, hyenas, and long queues of zebra.