Things to do
12-
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.
-
Gemsbokvlakte Waterhole
Oryx give this plain its Afrikaans name, and they share it with zebra, wildebeest and springbok, while black-backed jackals work the edges of the herds. Nothing on the flats grows tall enough to hide an animal, so it is one of the easiest waterholes in the south to scan from the car. It lies about fifteen kilometres south-east of the camp.
-
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.
-
Nebrowni Waterhole
Seven kilometres east of the camp, this open waterhole can hold several hundred animals at once in the dry months: springbok, zebra, wildebeest and gemsbok, with bull elephants coming in to drink and roll in the dust. Lions turn up often enough to make it the first stop of an early drive.
-
Okaukuejo Waterhole
Floodlights burn over this waterhole through the night, and a low wall is all that separates it from the camp's viewing benches. Black rhino are the regular visitors after dark, often several together; elephant come in around dusk and lion less predictably. Silence is the rule, and the benches fill from late afternoon.
-
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.
-
Olifantsbad Waterhole
Elephants drink here in the morning, and red hartebeest, giraffe and zebra take their turn through the rest of the day. A fenced picnic site with toilets stands close by, one of the few places on the southern loop where getting out of the car is allowed. Pair it with the Aus waterhole a short drive on, which is best before mid morning.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Ongava Game Reserve
Just south of Andersson Gate, this private reserve borders Etosha and offers what the park cannot: guided walks tracking rhino on foot, and night drives on its own land. The activities are for guests of the reserve's lodges, so plan them around a night there.
-
Salvadora Waterhole
Cheetah hunt springbok on the open flats around this spring on the pan edge, on the road between Okaukuejo and Halali. Its water is less salty than the springs nearby, so more game comes to it, and lions are seen here too. Scan the low ground towards the pan before driving on.
-
Sprokieswoud
Moringa trees usually grow on rocky slopes, and here the world's largest stand of them covers about four square kilometres of open limestone plain west of the camp. The trunks are naturally swollen, and years of elephants breaking the branches have bent them into strange shapes. Come in the late afternoon, when the low light shows them best.
