Namibia's Hardap Region - places of interest that make it attractive to tourists

Photo: Ostriches roaming sparsely vegetated plains - Hardap Region

Namibia Country & Travel Info

Read about places of interest in Namibia for sightseeing, game viewing and other holiday activities - select a region to see details:

Namibia's 13 Regions - in alphabetical order:

Caprivi - Katima Mulilo, Kwando River, Mudumu, Ngoma

Erongo - Erongo, Omaruru, Skeleton Coast, Swakopmund

Hardap - Kalahari, Maltahöhe, Namib Desert, Sossusvlei

Karas - Fish River Canyon, Kalahari, Keetmanshoop, Lüderitz

Kavango - Bushmanland, Divundu, Kaudom Game Park,

                       Mahango, Okavango River, Popa Falls, Rundu

Khomas - Khomas Highlands, Windhoek

Kunene - Damaraland, Kaokoland, Kunene, Twyfelfontein

Omaheke - Buitepos, Gobabis, Trans-Kalahari-Highway

Ohangwena - Oshikango

Omusati - Ombalantu

Oshana - Ondangwa, Oshakati, Nakambale

Oshikoto - Etosha National Park, Tsumeb

Otjozondjupa - Bushmanland, Otjiwarongo, Waterberg

 Here you'll find essential Namibia Travel Info

Where to stay for overnights in Namibia and at travel destinations around neighbouring countries is listed under Recommended Accommodations. 

Unique Tours & Safaris, Namibia

Contact Heike by Email:
info@unique-tours-safaris.com

Web: www.unique-tours-safaris.com

P. O. Box 1301
Swakopmund/Namibia
Cell:  +264-(0)81-2122580
Tel/Fax: +264-(0)64-406313
NTB-Registration: TFA 00107

Complete safari proposals can be found under

Suggested Itineraries

Namibia - country & travel info - PLACES OF INTEREST

Quick links to info
on places of interest
in other
Namibian Regions:

Caprivi
Erongo / Hardap Karas / Kavango Khomas / Kunene Omaheke / Omusati  Ohangwena
Oshana / Oshikoto Otjozondjupa

Hardap - a region in Namibia's south, one of only two regions spanning the entire width of the country. It is made up of three distinctively different areas:

• Kalahari & Eastern Escarpment - the eastern parts of the Hardap Region

• Maltahöhe Area & Western Escarpment - in the centre of the region

• Namib Desert & Sossusvlei - in the west of the region

Brukkaros Crater
The Brukkaros Crater is a 2 km (1.2 miles) wide extinct volcanic crater, about 80 km north of Keetmanshoop on the main B1 road to Mariental.

Eastern Escarpment
to be udated

Hardap Dam
The Hardap Dam is the biggest of its kind in Namibia with a water surface area of about 25 square km and an 862 metre long dam wall. It is fed by the Fish River that originates in the Naukluft Mountains and drains into the Gariep River.

The dam, situated only a short distance to the north-west of Mariental, also provides the water for a large irrigation scheme that allows the otherwise arid Hardap Region to grow vegetables for sale around the country.
 

Kalahari
The Kalahari Desert is perhaps Namibia’s best known geographical feature. The Kalahari is not a true desert as it receives fairly regular summer rainfalls, but it is a fossil desert. Do not expect to find the tall sand dunes associated with the Namib, the landscape is more one of golden grass and small red dunes. The Kalahari extends across 900,000 km²  and 7 countries: Botswana, Zambia, the Republic of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is called a ‘desert' mainly because it's porous, sandy soils cannot retain surface water. In some areas annual rainfall can be as high as 250mm, which accounts for the luxuriant grass cover during good years. The Kalahari is covered with trees, ephemeral rivers and fossil watercourses. Most of the southern segment is taken up with camel-thorn, red ebony and other acacias, and towards the centre, silver terminalia and shrubs are common. Farther north, where the climate is wetter, the acacias give way to bush savannah and dry woodland. The Kalahari's true lure lies in its eerie silence and solitude, both in the sparsely grassed plains and open spaces, also home to huge numbers of game and other animals. In Namibia and South Africa, there are large ranches in the Kalahari, which can be from 20,000 to 40,000ha in size, mostly raising sheep and ostrich. The reason behind this high productivity and endemism may be the relatively stable nature of precipitation. Another feature of the Kalahari, indeed of many parts of Namibia, are inselbergs, isolated mountains that create microclimates and habitat for organisms not adapted to life in the surrounding desert matrix.

More information on the northern Kalahari can be found under Otjozondjupa Region.
 

Lake Oanob
Lake Oanob Resort is situated only 85kms south of Namibia’s capital city Windhoek. The resort is built on the banks of the very scenic Oanob Dam, to the west of Rehoboth. This is a good place to stay for complete relaxation.

Continue reading below
Hardap Region - Maltahöhe Area & Western Escarpment / Namib Desert & Sossusvlei

or find places of interest in other Namibian Regions by using these quick links:

Duwisib Castle
In a remote valley, on the edge of the Namib Dune Desert, set amidst huge camel-thorn trees, lies one of Namibia's most famous and extraordinary buildings - the historic Duwisib Castle. Built in 1909, by German "Schutztruppe" Captain Hansheinrich Von Wolf, as a home for himself and his American wife, Jayda, the castle stands on the high ground looking southwards onto the picturesque valley.

Duwisib Castle today is under the care of Namibia Wildlife Resorts and houses a museum filled with relicts of the Von Wolf household as well as other items dating back to Namibia's German colonial past.

The museum is open every day of the week. Entrance fees are payable on the spot.

Western Escarpment/Schwarzrand & Tsaris Pass

The Western or Great Escarpment swiftly rises to over 2,000 meters. Moving away from the cold Atlantic Ocean increases the average temperatures and temperature ranges while the lingering coastal fogs slowly diminish. Although rocky with poorly developed soils, the area is nonetheless significantly more productive than the Namib Desert. As summer winds are forced over the Escarpment, moisture is extracted as precipitation. The water, along with rapidly changing topography, is responsible for the creation of microhabitats which are home to a wide range of organisms, many of them endemic. Vegetation varies in form and density, with community structure ranging from dense woodlands to more shrubby areas with scattered trees.

The Tsaris Mountains are a small range of mountains either side of the C19 from Mariental towards the Namib Desert. The rugged mountain landscape offers a number of natural springs, marked walking trails, with varying degrees of difficulty and routes for self-drive 4x4 trips. It is also a great area for bird watching; black eagles and rosy-faced lovebirds are resident here. On some of the plateaus you will find a number of scenic spots that overlook canyons. 

Continue reading below
Hardap Region - Namib Desert & Sossusvlei

Dead Vlei
Dead Vlei is a white clay pan located near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, inside the Namib Naukluft Park. The remaining skeletons of the trees, which are believed to be about 900 years old, are now black because the intense sun has scorched them.
 

Namib Desert
The Namib Desert stretches from south-western South Africa through western Namibia and south-western Angola. The name "Namib" has its origin in the Nama language and means vast. The desert covers over 80900 km², along about 1600 km of Atlantic Ocean coastline. Its east-west width varies from 50-160 km. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for at least 55 million years, it is considered to be the oldest desert in the world. The Namib's aridity is caused by the descent of dry air of the Hadley, cooled by the cold Benguela current along the coast. In this area, less than 10 mm of rain per year can be recorded and is almost completely barren. There are of cause some especially adapted species of plants and animals that are at home only in this desert, amongst them the Welwitschia mirabilis which is a scrub-like plant that grows only two long strap-shaped leaves continuously throughout its lifetime. These leaves may be several meters long, gnarled and twisted from the desert winds. The taproot becomes a flat, concave disc in age. The Welwitschia is known for its survival in the extremely arid conditions of the Namib, only existing due to some moisture spent by the coastal sea fogs. Although the Namib is largely unpopulated and inaccessible, there are some beautiful lodges at Sesriem, close to the famous sand dunes of Sossusvlei, which reach heights of up to 300 meters and thus count amongst the tallest in the world. The interaction between the water-laden air coming from the sea via southerly winds and the dry air of the desert causes immense fogs and strong currents, causing sailors in past times to lose their way. Along the Skeleton Coast you find proof of these lost soles or rather their ships some hundred meters inland.
 

Namib Naukluft Park
Namib-Naukluft National Park is an ecological preserve in the Namib Desert in southwest Africa, thought to be Earth’s oldest desert. The park is the largest game park in Africa, and a surprising collection of creatures survives in the hyper-arid region.

Namib Rand Nature Reserve
The NamibRand Nature Reserve, located in southern Namibia, is a private nature reserve established to help protect and conserve the unique ecology and wildlife of the south-west Namib Desert. Conserving the pro-Namib, the area along the eastern edge of the Namib Desert, is critically important in order to facilitate seasonal migratory wildlife routes and to protect biodiversity.

Sesriem Canyon
The Tsauchab carries water only during the rare times when rain falls in the Naukluft Mountains. As a result of the occasional rains, it has over the past two million years carved Sesriem Canyon, a kilometre (0.6 mile) long and up to 30-meter (100-foot) deep canyon in sedimentary rock. The name Sesriem is Afrikaans and means "six belts", since the early settlers had to attach together six belts in order to reach buckets down into the canyon to scoop up water.

Sossusvlei
The sand dunes of Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert are often referred to as the highest dunes in the world. Various arguments are laid out to support this claim, but all miss the point, which is that Sossusvlei is surely one of the most spectacular sights in Namibia.

Continue with
Karas Region - Aus, Lüderitz, Tiras Mountains / Fish River Canyon & Gariep River / Kalahari & Keetmanshoop Area

or read about places of interest in other Namibian Regions by using the quick links above