Things to do
6-
Lake
Etosha Pan
A salt pan covering some 4,800 square kilometres lies at the centre of the park, dry and glaring white for most of the year. Heavy rain floods it a few centimetres deep and brings flamingos in to breed. The viewpoints on its southern edge look out over a horizon with nothing standing on it.
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Halali Camp
Set on a dolomite hill halfway between the eastern and western camps, this one has its own floodlit waterhole reached on a short walk up through the trees. Elephant and rhino use it, and honey badgers work the camp at night. It is the natural lunch stop on a drive across the park.
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Okaukuejo Waterhole
Floodlights burn over this waterhole through the night and a low wall separates it from the camp, which makes it the one place in the park where game can be watched after dark. Black rhino are the regular visitors, elephant and lion less predictably. Chairs fill from late afternoon onward.
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Okondeka Waterhole
Out on the western edge of the pan, a spring feeds open grassland where the pride that works this stretch is often lying up in the shade. Springbok and gemsbok cross the flats to reach it. The drive out runs along the pan itself, which is white and empty in every direction.
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Olifantsrus
Western Etosha holds a camp built on the site of an elephant culling facility, and its hide is the only two storey walk in hide in the park, looking down onto the water from close range. Camping is the sole accommodation there. The western section sees a fraction of the traffic the south does.
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Ombika Waterhole
A limestone spring near the Andersson gate draws steady traffic through the middle of the day, when most other water in the south has gone. Zebra and giraffe queue at it in numbers. Its position makes it the first stop for anyone driving up from Outjo and the last on the way out.