It’s midsummer. Namibia is wet. The floods have been heavy over the past few weeks. Every newspaper here is filled with images of large bodies of water washing over parts of the north of the country.
And the newspapers are full of stories of people’s hardships too. Some 40 people have already drowned and hundreds have had to evacuate their homes.
The north is part of the route my fiancée, Alison Wright, and I have planned to drive over two months on as many of Namibia’s isolated tracks as we could.
First we were in the south, at Sossusvlei, and thereafter north through Damaraland, through a drenched Caprivi with a quick whizz through Botswana, and then south again through a desolate Khaudum and Bushmanland.
Here’s the story of the wet Caprivi.

Water everywhere

We refuel at Grootfontein. The photographs of the floodwaters on the newspapers’ front pages don’t bode well.
I phone the Ngepi Lodge on the Okavango River in the Caprivi to find out how things are. “Not to worry,” says a friendly woman, “there’s lots of water here, but we’re open.”
The first stop after Grootfontein is Rundu. The Okavango is in flood and no camping space is available here. Eventually we sleep in a rather musty motel. Close by, a little mongrel yaps all night.
We’re relieved to see the back of Rundu early in the morning. After turning off the B8 tar road, we follow the dirt road running parallel to it and winding along the river. Everywhere houses and farmlands are flooded.
At the Popa Falls Resort the stands are deep under water and even the power points are submerged. We pitch our tent on a beautiful green lawn under giant shade trees near the overnight huts.
The floodwater’s edge is about 20 paces from the tent.
I insert some marker sticks into the lawn at the water’s edge to monitor whether the water is rising.
The water is so high and flowing so strongly that we can’t walk across to see the Popa Falls. The island that has to be crossed to reach the waterfall is submerged.
We plan to stay here for a few days while exploring the Mahango Game Reserve, 25 km to the south. This small reserve lies on a thoroughfare to Botswana through the Mohembo border post and it has no overnight accommodation.
We immediately make tracks for Mahango and explore the drier, western route. It’s a long circular road through dense bush and thick sand. Although we see little game, we do encounter some elephants.
Back on the main road, a fish eagle clutching a big barbel flies over a pan of water.
At the resort the water has risen by 3 cm and crept a yard closer to the tent. We’ll have to sleep with one eye open, but it’s such a special camping spot we decide to take the risk.
While braaiing that night, two small lights slowly float past us on the edge of the floodwaters. By the time we’ve twigged and shone a torch in its direction, a crocodile scoots off into the reeds!

The next morning the camping area is covered in orange and golden leaves, and we immediately decide to stay for as long as the water level will allow us.
Back in Mahango we take the other trail to the river and pans. We drive through water, past elephants grazing in knee-deep water, unfazed by our proximity.
We also see a herd of red lechwe in the water. In Namibia, they only occur in the Caprivi. It’s a first sighting for us.
On our way back to camp we explore the trails to the other river camps. Ngepi Lodge is closed, apparently for the first time in 20 years. The wide Okavango River is flowing strongly across the road to the lodge – you can only cross it by boat. At Rundu, someone says, the Okavango is already 8 m above its normal level. (And that mass of water is still heading this way …)
Over the next few days we explore Mahango. Eventually, when the water at the drift that we have to cross every day flows over the windshield, we decide to move on.