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Popular Things To Do | Other Things To Do Tips | All Tips (85) The Okaukuejo Rest Camp not only offers the nicest accommodation in the park and a visitor’s center, it has one of the best watering holes as well. The Okaukuejo water hole allows visitors to see the animals outside their vehicles from the protection of a fence. The viewing area is razed a bit and clear viewing of the animals is available. During the day herds of elephant come to the hole as well as the occasional black rhino. I had the experience of seeing an elephant and a black rhino get into a scuffle where the rhino eventually got pushed out of the water hole (no surprise). The water hole is flood lit and allows the visitor to see some of the predator nocturnal species such as lion, brown hyena, and cheetah if you’re lucky. Sunset shots are great!
The Okaukuejo is most active during the winter dry season. Leave a Comment Directions: The first rest camp at the southern entrance to the park on C38.
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Southern Africa protects 80% of the remaining rhinos in Africa – and Etosha is one of the best places to see these massive tanks of the bush.
There are two species of rhino, confusingly called the Black Rhino and the White Rhino. Seen from afar they look identical, there is no black or white or pale or dark by any stretch of the imagination. The distinguishing feature is that White Rhinos have square lips and the Black Rhino have triangular upper lips, sort of coming to a point. The White Rhino is also a bit larger.
Rhinos are very rarely seen during the day and like to go to the waterholes at night. This is where you realise that the flood-lit waterholes of the restcamps are a blessing!
Where to look for them?
During the night at any of the flood-lit waterholes at the restcamps.
Interesting Fact: Everyone knows that the biggest threat to rhinos is poaching, for the horns. In China it is thought that it has medicinal properties to reduce fever and in the Middle East it is used to make ceremonial knives … all BS if you ask me! :-) Leave a Comment
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Etosha surprisingly supports a rather large population of Elephant. They are easy to see as they always seek out the water holes at least once a day. The heard will come storming in at a great pace and push off what ever was enjoying the water hole. Look out for the babies as there seems to be at least one in every herd.
Aus water hole is usually a popular spot for elephant but you may also find zebra springbok, impala, kudu, gemsbok, wildebeest, and maybe black rhino. Leave a Comment Address: Etosha National Park, NamibiaDirections: It is located about 50 km east of the Okaukeujo rest camp.
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Water is life … but water is scarce in this part of the world – extremely scarce, making the animal’s battle for survival even more difficult. Here the water quickly dries up, if any falls at all, so the waterholes are the prime lifeline for many animals.
There are 5 types of waterholes in Etosha: pans, contact springs, water-table springs, artesian springs, and artificial waterholes.
Pans are simply depressions in the land that collect water during the rains. They usually dry up pretty fast, so they are just a bonus.
Contact springs are openings in rocks that seep out waters after the rains. They retain water much longer than pans, but are still dependent on the amount of rainfall in a given year.
Water table springs are those where depressions on land are deep enough to come into contact with the water table beneath the surface of the land. Water in the underground water tables is the one longest preserved as it is the slowest one to evaporate, but still the level varies.
Artesian Springs are those where water is pressured up to the surface.
Artificial waterholes are boreholes built by the park management, pumping up the water using different strategies, such as diesel or solar pumps. Leave a Comment
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Africa’s largest antelope is found here at Etosha National Park. The eland is as big as a cow. It can weigh up to 950 kg, and is distinct by its size and the spiral horns found on both sexes. They are brown with small white lines running from top to bottom (not to be confused with the kudu). They tend to be grazers of savanna scrub. There are not too many here in Etosha numbering around 70, but they can be found around the water holes even though they can go a very long time without water. Leave a Comment Address: Etosha National Park, Namibia
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Etosha has a large and varied population of antelope and other hoofed species including the rare black-faced impala, black rhino, and mountain zebra. The park service boasts 20,000 springbok; 6,000 Burchell zebra; 700 mountain zebra; 2,600 blue wildebeest; 4,000 gemsbok; 2,000 kudu; 600 red hartebeest; 250 eland, 70 roan antelope; 300 black rhino; 700 black faced impala; and 2,000 giraffe.
I really loved the diversity of antelope at the various water holes here at Etosha. Leave a Comment Address: Etosha National Park, Namibia
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Etosha means “Great White Place of Dry Water”. The salt pan is the bottom of an ancient lake that now covers about 5000 sq km. Over the years, the climatic and tectonic changes allowed this place to become a vast and arid desert. Occasionally, however, the rainy season might allow some water to flow from the Ekuma and Omuramba Rivers drawing thousands of flamingoes and white pelicans. The saline content of the water during these floods are quite high and when the water eventually evaporates a white crust once again forms on the pan. In the north and west the pan has a greenish shade due to clay minerals deposited from the Ekuma and Oshingambo Rivers and a green algae that forms in shallow waters. Below the crusty salt layers is an impermeable clay layer. However abundant animal life is support through water that flows from the surrounding limestone formations that provide a porous reservoir for the infrequent rains.
The Etosha lookout in southern midsection of the great pan is great place to get a feel for the vast plan and how desolate and immense it really is. The lookout is just north of the Halali Rest Camp. This is not the only place for good pan views as many of the roads border the pan and offer excellent views as well. Leave a Comment Directions: Northern Namibia in Etosha National Park
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Of course this is the most distinctive feature of the park, the white expanse covering almost the size of Switzerland, tells a whole story about the geological history of this place. Hundreds of millions of years ago, when all continents were still joined as the super-continent Gondwanaland, the pan was submerged and flattened under a huge glacier. The sheer weight of the massive glacier, compressing the land beneath for millions of years left a depression now referred to as the Etosha Pan. The story does not stop here … over the years there have been cycles of inundation and aridity, with the depression going from being a lake to then being all dessicated again. Some debate that a river used to flow in the pan too.
As time passed, the climate changed, until it arrived to the point where the rate of evaporation was much faster than the actual rainfall. This left the soil rich of minerals … and salt. This allows for only 2 kinds of especially salt-tolerant plants to grow on this terrain. Leave a Comment
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Of course this is THE thing to do here, and there is a whole feast for the eyes – this is Africa after all, the only place in the world that you actually find what you see on TV :-) It is amazing to see such concentration of wildlife in such a seemingly hostile environment. Of course the keyword here is the waterholes. So get yourself a good map of the waterholes and prepare to be a bit patient. Just drive to the waterhole and wait … don’t give in to the temptation of just running wildly about to see all the waterholes. Just choose a few and lie in wait, I guarantee it will offer the greatest rewards. Also drive slow, for starters not to risk running down animals, but mostly to make it easier for you to spot the animals which are surprisingly well camouflaged – even massive animals such as elephants! It also helps to analyze the animals behaviour …. Animals looking agitated and looking at one spot might mean a lurking predator … circling vultures might mean a kill … animals leaving the waterhole might mean elephants are approaching …
Just a word of warning … Etosha is NOT a big-5 park … buffalos and hippos are absent for the obvious reasons of not enough water to maintain them. But they can be found further north in Namibia in the Caprivi Strip Leave a Comment
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Etosha has a very healthy population of elephants … around 2500, so you will be sure to see some. They are also very water-dependent, making them easy to find at waterholes. And there isn’t another animal so fun to watch at a waterhole than an elephant! They just love splashing around in the water, and they usually do that in family groups – that means little (uhhh, relatively speaking of course!), sweet calves! Don’t expect to see any big-tuskers in Etosha though … they wear out their tusks too much digging for water …
Where best to look for them?
Elephants can be easily found all over the park, but the best places are the waterholes at Olifantsbad, Aus, Tsumcor and Kalkeuwel.
Interesting fact: In Etosha you might notice that groups of elephants are differently coloured. This is due to the simple reason that they take on the colour of the mud they bathe in, which might be of different colours. Leave a Comment
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on January 1, 2004
on August 15, 2006
