Waterberg Resort

20 October

That sounded quite nice to me: “Waterberg Resort”. I was imagining a posh resort where, okay, perhaps wildlife wasn’t their top priority, but where we’d be able to settle in comfort and then go for some long hikes on the Waterberg Plateau; we had read that there are “good walks” here.

But no! Turns out it’s another national park. So… you know the drill; uninspiring accommodation, drippy or downright inept service, no wildlife knowledge, execrable food. The walks are all in the environs of the sprawling resort and none more than 40 minutes long.

We went on an afternoon game drive, the only way to actually get onto the plateau. I rather liked our hang-dog old nature guide, Peter I think his name was. He seemed quite glum at the second waterhole when no rhinos turned up. When I told him that there had actually been a rhino among the buffalo, and we’d all seen it, he brightened right up! Not even slightly abashed that he’d missed it. But overall it was a good drive; we got a glimpse of the elusive sable antelope, and amazing close-up views of the equally rare roan antelope, as well as a couple of surprise white rhinos as we were heading back to the resort after dark. The plateau itself is very cool – there literally are sheer cliffs right around this hundred square kilometers of wilderness, so if you let your imagination run away then it really feels like exploring a lost world.

Long after dark we went out with our torches spotlighting, and we saw five different bush-babies, two small-spotted genets, and even one of the black-tailed tree rats which had obviously followed us from Okakuejo!

So, in spite of itself, the Waterberg actually turned out quite nicely.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 28th, 2017 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Namibia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.