A Khaudum Adventure

A short drive through the remote Khaudum National Park, as part of a longer travel experience in Botswana and Namibia, has this group of overlanders keen to go back for more…

Minouw and I are back after an amazing trip through Botswana and Namibia where we spent nearly a month in the bush. Getting out into nature, camping, relaxing and getting by without all the technology and clutter of daily life is something we constantly realise we need to do as often as we can.

When we started planning our month-long trip, one thing we were sure of was that we wanted to visit a place in the remote Kavango area known as Khaudum.

It sits on the remote north-eastern border between Botswana and Namibia, and has a reputation for being wild, not easy to get to and home to some magnificent animals. As we found, the road there consists of narrow tweespoor tracks dug into thick sand, surrounded by dense Kalahari forest.

Almost all the routes going through the park are marked as ‘high risk’ by Tracks4Africa. It’s the perfect place to escape the tourist areas, which are flooded with people during the winter school holidays.

The Khaudum National Park is vast and unfenced, located between the Botswana border to the east, the Nyae Nyae Communal Conservancy to the south west and the Ondjou Communal Conservancy to the south. The area is one of the least visited areas in the whole of Namibia because of its remote location and rugged terrain. It’s not recommended to travel in this area with only one vehicle.

The game plan

We were headed south, aiming to go down through Namibia and back to Cape Town. We were pressed for time as we had only six days to get back home. The plan was to stay at the Nhoma Safari Camp in Tsumkwe, just outside Khaudum, then head for Kehoro outside Gobabis, after which we would stay at Kalahari Anib Lodge outside Mariental, then down to the hot springs at Ai-Ais resort in the Fish River Canyon, avoiding paved roads as much as possible.