Day 1 - Windhoek
On arrival into Windhoek, your guide will welcome you at the airport and transfer you to a comfortable guesthouse. Once you are settled in, your guide will discuss your trip with you and answer any queries you may have. As your flight may land in the afternoon we have not included lunch today, but lunch is available at the guesthouse or at a cafe in town if required. The remainder of the day is free to relax, swim, or wander around the city center as appeals. Dinner this evening is for your own account to give you the flexibility to dine at the guesthouse or choose from one of the city's many good restaurants.
No meals are included.
Days 2 & 3 - Okonjima
After breakfast at the guesthouse, you are collected by your safari guide who will transfer you by road to Okonjima Bush Camp. At Okonjima you can enjoy the welcoming atmosphere, superb accommodation and fantastic activities; starting with a guided afternoon excursion. This is home to the AfriCat Foundation, created to help conserve Namibia's cheetah and other big cats. Okonjima's guides will take you on all the activities here, such as visits to the cheetah welfare project, leopard tracking by vehicle, cheetah and spotted hyena tracking on foot, nature drives, an educational Bushman walking trail and visits to a night hide.
Windhoek to Okonjima: approx. 3 hours (215km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 4 & 5 - Southern Etosha National Park
You will rise early this morning for another memorable guided activity on the Okonjima Reserve before you return to Bush Camp for a sumptuous brunch. After you have had your fill, you will be met by your private Namibia safari guide and travel through the farming towns of Otjiwarongo and Outjo to reach Okaukuejo Resort in the afternoon. Okaukuejo is located within southern Etosha National Park, Namibia's primary game reserve. The higher concentration of wildlife here makes game viewing the focus of your days. Here you will stay two nights, using the relatively simple but perfectly located resort as your base to go out on game drives at your leisure. After dinner and drinks each evening, don't forget to check out the floodlit waterhole here; it gets regular wildlife visits including elephant, black rhino and lion.
Okonjima to Southern Etosha: approx. 3.5 hours (250km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 6 - Western Etosha
It's another day of great scenery as you drive through to the western side of Etosha National Park. This region has only been recently opened to the general public and you thus have another day of enjoying wildlife sightings in the company of your knowledgeable guide. You stay at the Hobatere Lodge, ideally located near the Galton Gate, the western gate of the Etosha National Park. If time permits, you will be able to enjoy a night drive on the Hobatere Concession with their local guide.
Southern Etosha to Hobatere: approx. 4.5 hours (250 km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 7 to 9 - Damaraland Under Canvas Camp
Today you will head west to the exclusive location of your specially erected Mobile Camp in the Damaraland. Along the way your guide will take you to visit a local Himba settlement - you may have to search for a while as the semi-nomadic Himba people sometimes move location with no notice. After a tasty picnic lunch at a scenic location near a natural spring, you continue on to the Mobile Camp, in time to enjoy fireside sundowners at the comfortable camp that will be your home for the next three nights.
The Huab Under Canvas Camp is located in a core desert adapted black rhino area in the Huab Conservancy within Damaraland. Up to 8 tents can be raised on mobile platforms and have the basic infrastructure that allows for important comforts such as en suite flush toilets - but the essence of the camp remains Under Canvas, mobile and experiential. Activities include tracking desert adapted rhino, which is completely private and done in an area that has the highest tracking success rate in north western Namibia; exploring the upper and less crowded Huab River in search of desert adapted elephants; nature walks and scenic game drives; as well as the possibility of visiting some nearby prehistoric rock engravings.
Hobatere to Huab Under Canvas: approx. 6 hours (350 km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 10 & 11 - Swakopmund
The drive today takes you south past Namibia's highest mountain, the Brandberg, which peaks at 2,573m above sea level, and west to meet the coast at Henties Bay. You then continue south to the coastal town of Swakopmund, where you can enjoy the pleasant seaside location and cooler coastal air for two nights.
Overnight at one of the town's quirkiest, newest hotels and enjoy dinner out with your guide at a waterfront restaurant. Don't miss the fresh seafood - Swakopmund is famous for it!
Damaraland to Swakopmund: approx. 7 hours (410km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 12 - Namib-Naukluft Park
The fascinating drive today takes you south-east through awesome and ever changing desert landscapes via the impressive Gaub and Kuiseb canyons to meet the dunes at the settlement of Solitaire. You then continue south to Sesriem where you enter the Namib Naukluft National Park. You reach Sossus Dune Lodge, situated on the edge of the desert, where you will stay for the next two nights. Arriving in the mid-afternoon, you've time to explore the local area and nearby Elim Dune with your guide as appeals, or just relax and enjoy sunset from your balcony.
Swakopmund to Namib-Naukluft: approx. 6 hours (345km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 13 - Namib-Naukluft Park
Start early to catch the dunescapes of the Namib in the rich light of sunrise. Sossus Dune Lodge offers the only accommodation within the Namib-Naukluft National Park boundary, allowing you access into the dunes well before sunrise when all those staying outside the park can only enter at sunrise. The early start is worthwhile (and a must for avid photographers) so you can reach the dunes when the dawn colours and shadows are at their most spectacular; at times it's all so amazing you won't know where to look first! Explore Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei with your guide, and climb some of the highest dunes in the world before enjoying brunch under a shady camelthorn tree.
Return to the lodge for lunch and relax during the heat of the day or enjoy a dip in the refreshing swimming pool. As the afternoon cools, your guide will take you to visit the nearby Sesriem Canyon; a narrow, eroded gorge about a kilometre in length, dotted with freshwater pools that refill after good rains. Centuries of flooding along the ephemeral Tsauchab River course has carved sinuous curves into the rock, making this a cool discovery on the hottest afternoon. You arrive back to the lodge in time to freshen up for dinner.
Sesriem to Sossusvlei to Sesriem: approx. 2 hours (120km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 14 - Windhoek
After a leisurely breakfast you return to Windhoek with your guide. Back in Windhoek, you can relax, explore the city center and do any last minute shopping at the craft center and street stalls. Overnight in comfortable guesthouse accommodation. A farewell dinner with your guide is included today.
Sesriem to Windhoek: approx. 5.5 hours (330km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 15 - Flight home
After some free time in Windhoek, you are collected from your guesthouse and driven to the airport in time to depart on your scheduled flight home.
Includes breakfast. Dinner is on the flight.
|
