The different seasons bring very different experiences to Etosha Heights, and each has its own charms and challenges. During the winter season (May to September), the land shrivels and dries, and the grass all but disappears. Waterholes slowly evaporate into the crisp, clear air, and animals congregate around them, searching for the little water that remains. The result? Fantastic game-viewing, that’s iconic, easy and prolific.

Then come the summer months of October to April. It’s officially the rainy season across most of sub-Saharan Africa, but actual rainfall is scarce in Etosha Heights. When it does rain, it’s brief and dramatic, and spectacular thunderstorms transform the landscape into bright shocks of green. Higher grass and fuller waterholes make game viewing a little harder during this time of year, but you can still expect to enjoy a diverse cast of the animal kingdom.

As temperatures go, winter highs peak around 30 degrees, but mostly hover in the mid 20s. It does get cold at night, and the mercury has been known to drop below zero – but nothing a cosy sweater and a roaring fire can’t handle. In summer, the average daily highs can sometimes go beyond a stonking 40 degrees.

If you are driving to Etosha Heights Private Reserve, please click here to download our directions.

Seasonality

• Green Season: 10 January – 31 March
• Shoulder Season: 01 April – 30 June & 01 November – 09 January
• High Season: 01 July – 30 September & 20 December – 19 December
• Peak Season: 01 August – 31 August & 01 October – 31 October

• Enjoy morning and afternoon game drives in the Etosha Heights Private Reserve, and look for the elusive black and white rhino amongst large concentrations of plains game.
• Wrap up warm and hop in the vehicle for a night-time game drive to explore the magic of the Namibian bush after dark.
• Dust off your camera, charge those batteries, and spend the morning or afternoon in the unique, double-tiered photography hide. Even if you’re not a keen photographer, the hide will get you closer than ever to Namibia’s giants.
• Bush meals and picnics can be arranged with a little advance notice.

Landscape

Safarihoek is set amongst an epic wilderness of vast savannah dotted with scatterings of mopane woodland and dolomite hills. This beautiful piece of Namibia is Etosha Heights Private Reserve, situated close to Etosha National Park’s southwestern border in northern Namibia. It’s a dry and dusty yet totally captivating land, and the silence and solitude that pervades is poignant. Down here, the wildlife is as magnificent as it is in the national park, and there’s one key difference too. Access to the reserve is carefully restricted (to humans, not animals!), making for exclusive and totally private wildlife experiences, free from tourist crowds and bulging 4x4s. And that’s exactly the kind of experience we like.

Wildlife

The impressive 60,000 hectares of classic Etosha landscape around Safarihoek Lodge is dominated by vast, flat savannah interspersed with thickets of mopane woodland, riverine forest, and scattered salt pans. The dolomite hills offer cover for elusive mountain zebra, kudu and lion – make sure to have your cameras ready! – and the numerous waterholes attract large numbers of game and their feathered counterparts. The reserve is also home to numerous species of antelope including sable and black-faced impala, as well as giraffe and other plains game. In winter, aardvark and elephant sightings are not infrequent. The Etosha area is rated one of the best places on the continent to view rhino, and Etosha Heights is home to both white and black rhino. A morning spent tracking their footprints through the dust before eventually coming nose-to-horn with one of the endangered beasts is a memory not to be forgotten.

Namibia is raw, rugged, and real, and the desert landscape is full of challenges, both for the wildlife and the people that inhabit it. The dream for Safarihoek was to create a lodge that would convince people to explore the wild, even if they weren’t naturally intrepid. We wanted somewhere that would allow people to discover the wilderness, but without forgoing the comforts; to have an adventure, but one that wasn’t too far out of the comfort zone. We also thought about price. Safaris can often be expensive, and we wanted to keep the lodge within the realms of possibility. And when Safarihoek opened in 2016, we think we managed to tick quite a few of those boxes.