Description
Ongava Game Reserve is the ideal base for your activities when visiting Etosha. Ongava Lodge’s 14 brick, rock and thatch double cottages are located at the top of a hill and each is tastefully furnished and has air-conditioning, an en-suite bathroom and a private balcony overlooking.
Meals are served in Ongava’s spacious ’lapa’, with its comfortable lounge area, convivial bar and magnificent views over the waterhole.
With Etosha a stone’s throw away, game drives are in open 4x4 vehicles into the Okaukuejo area where lion, elephant, cheetah, gemsbok, springbok and hartebeest can be seen regularly. Additionally, dusk and night drives offer an opportunity for guests to experience nature after dark. A number of safe and secure hides are also available to spend time on close-up wildlife viewing or photography. If this all sounds too strenuous, there is also a shaded swimming pool.
Game drives and daytrips into the easily accessible Okaukuejo area of Etosha National Park are rewarding, with sightings of lion, elephant, gemsbok, springbok, red hartebeest, and white and black rhino. Guests at Ongava Lodge share a dedicated guide and Land Rover, ensuring the best possible nature experience at one of Africa's great wildlife destinations.
The Ongava Game Reserve is unique in that it is one of the few private game reserves in southern Africa where there is a chance of seeing both black and white rhino. For those who enjoy close wildlife encounters, tracking white rhino on foot with a guide is a highlight not to be missed.
Accommodation
Accommodation at Ongava Lodge consists of 13 chalets and 1 family room, attractively built out of brick, rock and thatch. Each chalet has an en-suite bathroom with flush toilet, shower and double hand basins. Air-conditioning and overhead fans keep guests cool in summer. Mosquito nets are fitted to the windows and each room features a tea/coffee station and a safe. The rooms have glass-fronted doors which lead out onto a private, covered veranda, overlooking the plains.
Childcare
Minimum age of 16 years
Facilities
Facilities at the lodge include a lovely shaded swimming pool, a game viewing hide and a floodlit waterhole.
Activities
Activities at Ongava Lodge revolve around day and night wildlife-viewing drives, visiting hides that overlook waterholes and walks with experienced guides. A hide at the camp waterhole provides superb photographic opportunities. The Ongava Game Reserve features all the characteristic wildlife of the area, with both desert-adapted black and white rhino to be seen as well as lion.
When to travel
The best time to visit Etosha is from April to September as the temperature is tolerably cool, especially at night. From May to September the increasingly thirsty animals gather at waterholes, making it the best time to go to Etosha for game viewing. Summer is best time to travel to Etosha for bird watching as migratory birds (both intra-African and Palaearctic) flock into the park's many habitats after the summer rains.
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Location and directions
Ongava Game Reserve, Etosha, Namibia
Ongava Lodge is situated along the southern boundary of Etosha National Park in the privately-owned Ongava Game Reserve. The Ongava Private Reserve, encompasses a huge 30,000 hectare slice of bushveld whose best-known residents are a thriving population of white and black rhino.
How to get there
Windhoek Airport (430km) is the closest international airport. From here you can take a light aircraft flight to Ongava's (one and a half hours) private airstrip near the camp where a member of staff will meet you and transfer you to the camp. Alternatively, if you wish to self-drive from Windhoek it takes approx four and a half hours.
