Redsand Lodge runs along the foot of a long red dune, the first of hundreds that roll east towards Botswana. The main building is a high thatched roof on gum poles, open at the sides, with a deep veranda that looks over a waterhole and a pan of pale grass. Thirty chalets spread out on either side, each with a stoep facing the dune. In the late afternoon the sand turns the colour of brick and the camel thorns throw long shadows across it.
The lodge sits inside the Ombara Kalahari Reserve, about 360 km² of old cattle farms that are slowly going back to grass. Fences came down, water points were moved, and oryx, springbok, red hartebeest, blue wildebeest and eland are back in good numbers. Black rhinos returned in 2019 and are watched on foot every day by the reserve's rangers. Bat-eared foxes den near the airstrip, aardwolf come out after dark, and sociable weaver nests the size of haystacks hang in the camel thorns.
Ombara Farm is about an hour away near Mariental, so much of what you eat comes straight from there: beef, milk, yoghurt, farm cheese, butternut, beetroot and spinach. Dinner is served at long tables on the veranda or in the boma around a fire, under a very wide sky. The pool is cut into the dune slope and stays cool until mid-afternoon. It is a relaxed, sociable lodge that suits families, first-timers in Namibia and anyone breaking the drive between Windhoek and the south.
Twenty-four thatched chalets of about 38 m² with a king bed or two three-quarter beds, an indoor shower and a second shower open to the sky behind a reed screen. Sliding doors lead onto a private stoep with two loungers.
Every chalet faces the dune, so you can watch the light change without getting out of bed.
Six chalets of about 60 m², with a main bedroom and a second room with two single beds, joined by a bathroom with a bath and an indoor shower. The stoep is wider, with a table for four.
Sleeps up to four. These chalets sit closest to the pool and the main building, so children are never far from the action.
Rates and live availability are on the Ombara booking engine. Ask the Windhoek team and they reply with both.
An open vehicle, a ranger and the red dunes of the reserve. Look for oryx and springbok on the grassy streets between the dunes, ostriches, black-backed jackals and raptors such as the pale chanting goshawk. The drive stops on a high crest for coffee in the morning or a cold drink in the evening.
Walk or drive up the tallest dune behind the lodge, where a ranger has set up a small bar on the sand. Gin and tonic, cold beer or rooibos, biltong and dried fruit, and a view of dune after dune turning red, then purple, then grey.
At first light the sand still holds the story of the night. A ranger reads it with you: the zigzag of a barking gecko, a scorpion's drag marks, the neat prints of a bat-eared fox, the busy burrows of a ground squirrel colony. You walk slowly, about 3 km, and learn which plants store water and which ones people used as medicine.
Drive an hour to Ombara Farm near Mariental, where drip lines fed by boreholes water long beds of vegetables and a small herd gives the lodges their beef and milk. Walk the fields with the farm team, see the dairy where the yoghurt and cheese are made, and stay for a long lunch cooked from that morning's picking.
The nearest town lights are more than 60 km away. After dinner a guide sets up a telescope on the deck, shows you Saturn's rings, the Jewel Box cluster and the two Magellanic Clouds, then teaches you to find south using the Southern Cross and its two pointer stars.
Signposted off the C20, 62 km north-east of Mariental, Ombara Kalahari Reserve, Hardap Region, Namibia
24.0513° S, 18.3427° 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.
