• Etosha National Park

    In central-northern Namibia the flat landscape is dotted with a number of large salt pans, slight depressions created by wind action. The most famous of these formations is Etosha Pan, which resides in the eponymous Etosha National Park, a vast reserve spanning 7700 square miles.

    Etosha means “great white place” and indeed its immense salt pan stretches blinding white across 1900 square miles. Once an ancient superlake, today a few rivers and occasional heavy summer rains fill the pan (in good years attracting over a million flamingos to its salty waters), but for the most part it is parched and dry. On its edges however there are a number of springs and waterholes, attracting wildlife during the dryer months. Even during the wetter summer they remain active, drawing elephant, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, black rhino, springbok, gemsbok, and the endemic black faced impala as well as their predators. Bird life is prolific with 340 species documented, amongst them 10 of Namibia’s 14 endemic bird species.

    On the southern boundary of Etosha National Park lies Ongava Game Reserve, formed in 1991 when the shareholders of Ongava converted four unproductive cattle ranches into a prolific 30,000 hectare private reserve concession, now a haven to large concentrations of wildlife.

    The Ongava Game Reserve forms an extension of Etosha National Park, enabling large game such as elephant and lion to move between the two areas. Most general game has been reintroduced including springbok, gemsbok, wildebeest, Burchell’s Zebra, Hartmann’s mountain zebra, waterbuck, red hartebeest, giraffe, eland and the largest population of black faced impala outside of Etosha. The most successful reintroduction on the reserve however is that of the white and black rhino.


    Click to learn more about the camps found in the Etosha National Park area