Waterberg Wilderness - ONE Namibia

You stay at Waterberg Wilderness Lodge in a long valley beneath the Waterberg plateau, a fifty-kilometre sandstone mountain that rises two hundred metres from the Kalahari plains. The lodge is built from the same red sandstone as the mountain, with nine double rooms and three family rooms under old trees. Each has a veranda, shower and sitting area; power comes from solar panels, enough for lights and chargers but not kettles.

The kitchen serves a set dinner menu with European-Namibian dishes, and breakfast is eggs cooked to order. The spring water swimming pool is filled from the same water that feeds the valley, and the bar looks out over the garden where bamboo lines an old water basin.

Guides take you out twice daily — mornings for the plateau hike, afternoons for the rhino drive. The hike climbs a hundred and fifty metres onto the plateau, with views over the Kalahari and explanations of the plants and Herero culture. The drive almost always encounters white rhino, and often giraffe, oryx and eland too. The reserve is fenced against poachers, with twenty kilometres of two-metre-high wire.

The Waterberg plateau intercepts clouds to make its own rain, which is why the mountain has water even in the dry season. The same water fills the pool and keeps the valley green.