Waterberg Plateau National Park, Namibia

The Waterberg Plateau towers 400 metres above the surrounding plains, and 1878 metres above sea level, dominating the landscape for miles around. The plateau itself is 48 km at its longest point, and 16 km at its widest.

The history is rich. The oldest rock stratum is 850 million years old and dinosaurs left their tracks here 200 million years ago. The first human inhabitants were San people, who left rock engravings believed to be several thousand years old, and a small band of San were still living their traditional lifestyle on the mountain until the late 1960's.

Waterberg was the site of one of the major turning points in the story of Namibia and its people. It was here, on the foothills, that the Herero people lost their last and greatest battle against the German Colonial forces at the begining of the century.

Waterberg Plateau and 41000 hectares of surrounding land was declared a Nature Reserve in 1972. The plateau is largly inaccessible and several of Namibia's endangered species were soon translocated here to protect them from predators and poaching. The programme was very successful and Waterberg now supplies the other Namibian parks with rare animals. The plateau was first envisaged as a reserve for eland, Africa's largest species of antelope.

In 1989 a small tourist resort was built on the lower slopes of the mountain. There is a well situated campsite with good shade trees and an excellent swimming pool. The camp is well maintained and hot showers and flush toilets are provided in clean ablution blocks.