Klipkop means stone head, and the name is literal. The lodge sits in a bowl of rounded granite koppies, the rock weathered into domes, slabs and balanced boulders the size of houses. At its centre is a farmhouse built in the 1920s by a karakul sheep farmer, with granite walls half a metre thick, a corrugated iron roof and a wraparound stoep. The old shearing shed is now the dining room. The kraal walls still stand, and the windmill still pumps water into the stone reservoir.
The rooms are scattered between the boulders on raised timber platforms and sandy paths, so each one looks out on rock, sky and the long grey-gold plain that runs west to the Namib. Aus lies at about 1,400 m on the edge of the Huib plateau, which makes it cooler than the desert below. Winter nights can drop below zero. After good winter rains, usually from July to September, the plains turn yellow and orange with flowers for a few weeks.
Most people come for the wild horses. Twenty minutes away at Garub, a herd of between one and three hundred horses lives free on the desert plain, descended from animals left behind around the First World War. You can watch them from the shelter at the water point at any time of day. Back at the lodge there is a wood-fired oven, lamb from the farms around Aus, an honesty bar in the old farm office and a fire in the lounge every evening from May to September.
Six rooms inside the original farmhouse, each about 26 m², with granite walls, old wooden floors, a double bed or twin beds and a modern bathroom with a shower. Shutters open onto the shared stoep.
Warm in winter and cool in summer, the way old stone houses are meant to be.
Sixteen rooms of about 30 m² built on timber decks between the granite domes, with a king bed or two singles, a shower with a window onto the rock, and a private deck facing west for the sunset.
Some are tucked so close to the boulders that rock hyraxes sun themselves a few metres from your chair.
Two stone cottages of about 55 m² that once housed farmworkers, now with two bedrooms (one double, one twin), a bathroom with a bath, a kettle-and-fridge corner and a fireplace.
Sleeps four. A good fit for families or two couples travelling together.
Rates and live availability are on the Ombara booking engine. Ask the Windhoek team and they reply with both.
A guide drives you to the Garub water point early, when the horses come in to drink and the light is low and gold. You hear how they have survived a century in the desert, how the herd is counted and who keeps an eye on it, then you sit in the shelter and let the horses come to you.
A marked 6 km trail loops from the farmhouse through the koppies, past a seep spring, old stone sheep pens and a lookout over the plains. Go alone with the trail map, or with a guide who can name the succulents and point out klipspringers, rock hyraxes and the Ludwig's bustards that stride across the flats.
A full day on the coast. Walk through the sand-filled houses of Kolmanskop, the diamond town abandoned in the 1950s, then drive on to Lüderitz for its painted colonial buildings, the harbour and a lunch of fresh oysters and fish on the waterfront. Back at Klipkop in time for dinner.
Drinks are carried up the biggest boulder behind the farmhouse, a short scramble with steps cut into the rock. From the top you see the Aus mountains to the east and the plains running out towards the Namib in the west, all turning pink as the sun goes down.
On Saturdays the wood-fired oven in the old shearing shed is lit at lunchtime. Dinner is slow-roasted lamb with rosemary, crisp potatoes, pumpkin fritters with cinnamon sugar and bread straight from the bricks, served at one long table for the whole house.
Turn north off the B4 18 km west of Aus, then 9 km on a gravel farm road, Karas Region, Namibia
26.5531° S, 16.0712° E
Getting there: Ombara Shuttle and Ombara Drive 4x4s both reach most of our lodges. Ask the team for the best route from where you are.
Tell us your dates and group. We come back with availability and a sensible way to get there.
