Namibia by Private Train - Walvis Bay to Pretoria - 2024

Day 1 Fly overnight from London Heathrow, via Johannesburg, to Walvis Bay.                                              

Day 2 On arrival, transfer to Swakopmund, with palm-lined streets, half-timbered houses, Atlantic surf, and an iconic lighthouse, for overnight at the 4-star Strand Hotel. (D)

Day 3 Embark on the Rovos Rail train at Walvis Bay Station and travel inland toward Otjiwarongo. (B, L, D)

Day 4 Tour to visit a Cheetah Conservation project, dedicated to preserving the cheetah in the wild; and return to the train to journey to Tsumeb. (B, L, D)

Day 5 Travel (1hour) by road to Etosha National Park, Namibia’s largest and greatest reserve, where flamingos visit the massive Etosha Pan salt flat/lagoon, and rhinos share the plains with elephants, leopards, lions, giraffes, huge herds of antelopes and, of course, cheetahs. Explore the park on an afternoon game drive, and overnight within the reserve at the Mokuti Safari Lodge (or similar). (B, L, D)

Day 6 Etosha is home to well over a hundred mammal species and three times as many bird types. After an early morning game drive, re-join the train at Tsumeb and continue the journey to Kransberg. (B, L, D)

Day 7 Travel south to Windhoek and transfer to the airstrip for a one-hour, light aircraft flight to Sossusvlei in the southern Namib Desert. Part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, its landscape is a huge, gleaming ‘vlei’, a clay and salt pan, encircled by wind-sculpted ‘star dunes’, and forming a fantastically photogenic arena. Enjoy an afternoon desert drive and an evening bush dinner. Overnight at Le Mirage, Sossusvlei Lodge or similar. (B, L, D)

Day 8 Wake early for a sunrise desert drive and breakfast in the vlei, where pitch-black thorn trees rise from the bleached-white floor of the pan, and rust-red dunes are framed by a bright blue sky. Return to Windhoek by air for lunch at the Country Club and a city tour, visiting the Trans-Namib Transport Museum, celebrating the country’s railroad past; the Independence Memorial, and Evangelical Lutheran Church; and the Namibian Craft Centre, with goods handcrafted by rural communities and ethnic groups. The journey this evening cuts through the Kalahari Desert to Mariental. (B, L, D)

Day 9 Traverse the desert to Keetmanshoop to visit the rustic Garas Park rest camp. Sprinkled with sculptures by its artist owner, the unworldly Quiver Tree landscape is a rare cluster of some 300 of the aloe trees, standing up to 30ft tall on a rocky hillside. Depart for Aus. (B, L, D)

Day 10 Discover the ghost town of Kolmanskop, an old diamond mining town, abandoned in 1956, its houses preserved by the arid climate of the Namib Desert, but now filling with banks of sand. Continue to the coast for lunch in Lüderitz, with museums and colonial architecture in the town, and penguins, flamingos, and seals along its shore. After time at leisure, return to the train, bound for Holoog. (B, L, D)

Day 11 Tour to the fantastic Fish River Canyon, at 161km long, the largest gorge in the southern hemisphere. A landscape of cliffs and boulders, with walls up to 650m high, it cuts a dramatic course, a river torrent in the rainy season and barely a stream in the dry. The train departs to cross from Namibia into South Africa, and continues through the Great Karoo’s varied terrain to Upington. (B, L, D)

Day 12 Enjoy a cruise on the Orange River, crossed by the 3,000ft span of South Africa’s longest railway bridge; and a walking tour of Upington, where landmarks include the Date Palm Avenue and historic Hortentia Windmill. Continue through the Karoo to Kimberley, the capital of the Northern Cape. (B, L, D)

Day 13 It’s all in the name on a visit to Kimberley’s ‘Big Hole’ diamond mine, claimed (and disputed) to be the world’s deepest hand-excavated void; and the adjacent open-air Mine Museum, a convincing scene of an 1870s diamond-rush town, complete with shops and houses. The train starts its climb to Pretoria in the afternoon, for your final night aboard the Rovos Rail train. (B, L, D)

Day 14 Disembark at the Rovos Rail Station in Pretoria and transfer to Johannesburg airport for the overnight flight to London. (B, L)    

Day 15 Arrival at London Heathrow.                                                                                                                         

• Key
• B - Breakfast
• L - Lunch
• D - Dinner