We decided to leave the coast and head interior to the Namibia Wildlife Resort (NWR) of Waterberg Plateau, a 50 km long and 16 km wide park area. This protected area hosts and breeds rarer species of wildlife, that the larger parks do not have. Mostly they can accomplish this by keeping out the more aggressive species, like the lions, tigers and rhinos. The plateau is an abnormal geological formation of an orange-red sandstone plateau which rises 150 m with sheers cliffs on all sides and sticks out in the horizon like an elevated mass. The NWR parks all run on the same schedule, gates open at sunrise and shut at sunset, and the gatekeepers are instructed to keep strict to these schedules (more on this later, reoccurring theme). Once again this meant we were pushed for time to get there before sunset. We had asked before we left Swakapmond how long the drive would be and were told 5 hours, but we have come to learn that Namibians must drive a lot faster, since most of the time we are at least 50% longer! After over 6 hours of driving, we turned off the main road (B1/C22) and headed towards Waterberg, just before the sun was setting, only to realize that we had limited gas (diesel) and had to loop back to fill up prior to our last stretch of gravel road driving. This detour meant we would be driving in the dark again, not a desirable situation. Our last 25 km of dark gravel road driving was nothing short of terror, we had a pickup truck filled with guys and ‘animals’ cages’ in the back tailgate us, then pass us – and I was sure they were poachers who would certainly not want us get in their way. Then we came upon a series of gates (not uncommon on some of these gravel roads where they are protecting wildlife and livestock). At the gates were security guards, who looked at us and asked why we would be travelling so late (remember that sunset is 6:15 pm, so this would have been maybe 7:30 pm), to top it off we missed the park entrance cut off and went up a steep, sandy road only to need to u-turn back. No one was happy when we finally hit the park gates and tried to explain to the gatekeepers why we were late. Reluctantly, they took pity on our situation and welcomed us into the park, noting that the office was closed and we would need to check in the morning to register and pay (registering at these resorts is a whole other story, let’s just say they do it the old-school way with log books and it is time consuming).
The blessing was that the resort was fantastic, and it was like walking into a scene from one of the safari movies. A large spacious restaurant, outfitted with African decor and art, candelabras, and to top it off a beautiful traditional outdoor buffet, was waiting for us. There was several other trekkers (mostly older Germans), all enjoying themselves immensely. We dined, drank, washed up and slept sounding till 5:30 am (dawn) the next day, when we started our Game Drive.
Game driving is a serious event; you need to be up early, quiet, attentive and on the ball to see the wildlife. It is a completely different experience then going to a zoo, where the animals are within a viewing area. A Game Drive is going in a 4x4 vehicle, essentially through the bush, to try and find where the animals may be grazing, eating, walking. The guide needs to rely on tracks, time of day, weather, previous spottings, etc. And as we have been told, “there are no guarantees as to what you may see, this is nature”. The biggest game in this reserve was the White Rhino – which was on the extinct list – and is being bred here, and secretly it is what I was hoping to see. Unfortunately, we never got to see one. We did however see a variety of other animals, starting with the Bush pigs (Warthogs) who were grazing as soon as we left at the bottom of the plateau. We also saw giraffes, sable, roan, springbok, gemsbok, oryk, kudo, impala, zebra and a whole clan of baboons, who we learnt were very mischievous creatures. We had heard the Baboons crying and howling in the morning, and could not figure out what the noise was. We were told that they love to come down from the mountain top and rummage through anything at the resort.
We also came across a chameleon crossing our path and spent some time observing it’s behaviour, how it continuously changes colour and puffs it’s self up to look bigger when threatened. We marvelled at the way it walks – and the kids developed their own chameleon dance, with Anna even adding dancing and song.
We left the resort and headed to a town 100 km away, with a well-known German bakery (which we read about in our tour book), for lunch on route to Estosha National Park. As we parked outside of the bakery, we noticed that one of the NWR game vehicles was pulling in behind us. Two of the Waterberg resort workers came over to our van and started to explain how they had been trying to get a hold of us (essentially tracking us), since there had been a mistake made. We had no clue what they were talking about, but eventually we came to learn that they had ‘double-charged our credit card for $4000 Rand, instead of $ 2100 Rand’, and were ‘tracking’ us to give us the money back. They did not know our route plans, but had deduced that if we were not going to the Bakery (obviously this is a hot-spot for tourists), then Windhoek (a 300+ km drive) would likely be where we would stop for gas. When I asked them if they would have driven to Windhoek to give us the money back, they looked at us with all sincerity and said, yes of course. They handed us the $2000 Rand cash ($300 Cnd) with apologies of the accounting error, of which we gave them back $300 R ($45 Cnd), and wished them safe travels on their return trip back to Waterberg. We suspect that the daily animal tracking skills also helps tracking down other species when required!
Posts
