Sesriem Campsite

The afternoon Sesriem Camp went under mud

On Wednesday 18 January 2006 the gauge at Sesriem Camp took 85 mm of rain in about 45 minutes. The weather records kept here from 2010 to 2017 average roughly 104 mm for a whole year. The Namibian listed what went under: reception, the storeroom, the shop, the campsites and the staff houses. Fourteen people were camping that day. None was hurt, though their gear was caked in mud.

Kurt Schlenther, general manager of Sossusvlei Lodge, called it the biggest flood ever, with far more water and mud than in 1997. Sesriem Canyon stood full. A smaller watercourse that staff had not seen flood in twenty years broke its banks. The camp’s fuel pumps stayed shut until the tanks had been tested for water. By the following Monday NWR said fuel was on sale, pitches were being cleared and campers were welcome again.

A river that turns up without warning

It was not a one-off. In February 2011 the Tsauchab came down over the road to the dunes and small cars that had driven in could not get back. Christel du Toit of Sossusvlei Lodge told The Namibian the water was knee deep in the mornings and rose through the day, and that her staff went out each evening to bring guests across. In January 2022 a member of the 4x4 Community forum reported the river in flood again, and the canyon carried water in the rains of 2026.

If storms are sitting over the Naukluft, ask at the office before taking a sedan to the dunes. How seldom the river reaches the pan is on our Namib-Naukluft page.

Twenty-four trees

Wikivoyage still gives the camp 24 pitches, each with its own thorn tree. Travel News Namibia counted 29 in its December 2011 issue, set among old camelthorns. NWR now lists 44. The trees did not multiply with the pitches. Roxanne Reid, back in May 2015 after an earlier stay, found a far bigger camp where the newer sites were not all under a tree, and hers was a patch of bare sand.

On the 4x4 Community forum one member’s advice is to ask for the eastern side, near the pool, where the prevailing wind brings less dust. Another called the overflow area as open and barren as a “platteland airstrip” and said the ablutions are sometimes under strain.

Jackals, 3°C and a police post in the dark

Travel News Namibia’s writer described a jackal’s cry as about the only sound at night. Reid heard a black-backed jackal on the drive back to camp after sunset. Then there is the cold. The weather station at Sesriem recorded a low of -2.3°C in the years 2010 to 2017. In July 2021 the Sesriem police post faced a week with lows of 3°C forecast and no electricity, because it runs off NWR’s solar panels and NWR had cut it off over late invoices. The officers cooked on gas.

Sleeping inside the gate does not guarantee the sunrise. One forum member drove in early and, about 30 km short of the vlei, found the whole area under thick mist that only lifted around eleven.

Six thongs and a clinic called Mayte

The story of the six thongs is often pinned on the Dorsland trekkers, Wikipedia’s Sesriem entry included. Its account of the trek itself has the wagons crossing the Kalahari and Kaokoland to Angola between 1874 and 1881, with no mention of this corner of the Namib. NWR’s own wording is safer: “pioneers”, unnamed.

The emergency centre at Sesriem is called Mayte for a reason. Mayte Hernandez died of her injuries after a car accident, at a time when the nearest medical help was 170 km away in Maltahöhe. Her fiancé, Jean-Charles Hayoz, started the centre with the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund, and it opened in November 2011.