OK, the Etosha post was indeed rather long – but it was afterall 4 days in the crown jewel Park of Namibia – so I will make this one short. After leaving the Onguma Reserve and Etosha, we headed south towards Windhoek to meet up with Steve and Ki, who will join us for the remainder of this year’s journey. We made a brief one-night stand stop in Waterberg Plateau National Park, primarily because it was conveniently located halfway to Windhoek, but also because it provided an opportunity to stretch our hiking legs
Waterberg Plateau is, as the name suggest, a large sandstone plateau a few hundred kilometers north of Windhoek rising roughly 800 feet above the vast plains of the Kalahari of eastern Namibia. The Park, encompassing 156 square miles, was declared a reserve in 1972. It is largely inaccessible; hence, in the early 1970s several of Namibia’s endangered species were translocated there to protect them from poaching, and it worked! The Park now supplies other Namibian parks with rare species, including the rare black rhino.
The Park is rather picturesque from the southern side where a several hundred foot escarpment rises from the plains along a roughly 100 km stretch to reach the top of the plateau. When the sun hits the red rocks as sunrise and sunset, especially with the multi-colored lichens on the rocks, it is truly a beautiful sight to behold.
The Plateau still hosted a small tribe of the San (Bushman) as recently as the 1960s, but they are all gone now. The site is also somewhat famous, at least in German history books, as the place where the Ovaherero people lost their last and greatest battle against the German colonial forces at the beginning of the 20th century. Native survivors fled to neighboring British Bechuanaland (now Botswana), but an estimated nearly two-thirds of the Ovaherero population lost their lives during this period – yikes!
Here’s a few pictures from our brief visit that involved a few hour hike up to the top of the escarpment:
Here’s a short 2 min video showing the escarpment from the top and some close encounter footage with a pair of dik-diks, Africa’s smallest antelope:
Waterberg Plateau video (2 min)
From the Wildside:
New Species:
- Alpine swift
- Bradfield’s swift
Great video of the dik-dik!
What a beautiful plateau! Love hearing how the animals are protected from poachers in that park. I appreciate the history lesson as much as the pictures of the adorable dic-dic and love bird. Looks like a nice hike (minus leopards, baboons and lions😳).
Great pics and video.
Ditto what Kathy said. The history lesson , conservation efforts and the Dik Dik are really adorable. Those eyes!