In many of the national parks across Africa, you are required to stay in your vehicle. Dona and I like to walk. We want to be outside where we can examine the plants and small animals, look at the ground, touch the place. Waterberg Plateau National Park is one of the few parks where you are officially allowed to walk; where it is actually encouraged. So on our way up to Mahango in the Caprivi Strip, it was high on our list of places to stop.
Waterberg is a couple hundred kilometers north of Windhoek on the B1, the major north-south road. The road is in many ways rather boring, passing what seems like endless expanses of flat bushland with tangles of shrubs with grass stretching on forever. One encounters baboons all along the highway; they are constantly foraging in the cutover areas.
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| Baboons On Road |
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| Baboon Footprints |
Our Bradt's Guide to Namibia said there was a big craft market in Okahandha; it was on our way so we stopped. It was a somewhat uncomfortable experience, as everyone selling could desperately use whatever business we might have; you felt like you wanted to buy something from each of them, but we couldn't. Many of the things were pretty much the same, so we tried to find things which were unusual. We ended up buying some tongs and a serving dish from "Billy", and a woven platter/basket from one of the women.
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| Okahandja Craft Market | ||
| Dona and Billy
with his tongs and serving dish |
Dona and Shop Owner
with a basket |
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From Okahandja we continued north to Waterberg Park. We found a campsite, pitched the tent, and immediately set off for an afternoon / evening hike.
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| Burchell's Starling |
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| The Waterberg Plateau | |
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| Dona heading up the trail |
Along the way we encountered baboons, hyrax, and an occasional bird which we usually couldn't get a good look at. The park is supposed to have roan and sable antelope and rhinos, but on this well-travelled footpath we didn't expect to see any of those. Unfortunately, we were right!
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| Baboons | ||
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| Chockstone |
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| Hyrax | ||
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| Lichen covered Cliffs | |
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| Summit Notch |
The topography of Namibia in the area of Waterberg is reminiscent of Utah -- flat as a pancake, and then the mesas stick up. When you look down on the surrounding flatlands, you see nothing but scrub bush intersected by absolutely straight roads at 1km intervals. The German / Afrikaan influence is obvious; it's boring in a very precise way...
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| View from the Summit | |
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| Dona on Top | Gary and Dona on Top |
As usual, we were always on the lookout for fog basking Tenebrionid Beetles. We found some beetles, but weren't really certain whether these were fog-baskers or not. Since we were in an inland area where there is not a high prevelance of fog, it seems less likely.
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| Beetle |
We kept hearing ground dwelling birds running around and on the way down we finally caught up with some; they were Red-billed Spurfowl.
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| Red Billed Spurfowl | ||
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| Tall Grass |
We didn't see any of the elusive ungulates or other large mammals besides baboons. But we did see some small dikdiks on our way back.
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| Kirk's Dikdik | |
As usual when out exploring, we got back after dark. Dona cooked us up a good meal and we crawled into the tent delighted with our day and looking forward to more adventure in the morning.
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| Waterberg Dona Cooking |
The next morning, we headed for the Caprivi Strip in the far northeast of Namibia, where we would explore Mahango National Park.
This page last updated on 2015-02-01.
