NWR Hardap Resort — Hotel in Hardap

I can only echo the sentiments of some of my fellow travellers about the lady at gate charging for entrance to the park. It must have taken her 15 attampts on the calculator to add up the price for 4 adults ($70 each) and 2 cars ($50 each). Which should be a very simple task of adding up, taking payment and issuing a receipt must have taken her half an hour, all with the attitude of doing us a favour, and how dare we disturb her.||We were directed to the NWR reception and were greeted by a lovely lady, the complete opposite of what we had at the entrance gate. She was very polite and directed us on to our camp site. What a disappointment. We were told to camp in the area of the dormatories. There was no real camp site marked out, and no power points. Luckily we are geared for camping "off-grid" but this is not what we paid for. The ablutions were filthy, full of cobwebs and half the lights didn't work. We used the showers from our own camping rigs instead. Then in the middle of the night, other guests (or maybe it was staff?) arrived to the dormatories. They made an absolute racket, waking us all up. ||Not a very enjoyable stay. Give it a skip. The place looks like it could have been an amazing place in its heyday, but it is extremely run down now. It reminded me of Jurassic Park 2 when they return to the island and everything is overgrown, and the animals have taken over. ...

NWR so not worth any of their resorts, ok so don't get me wrong here , we are South Africans who have been traveling Namibia since 2009, sometimes for 2 months at a time. NEVER have we ever been to a NWR resort where their facilities have been acceptable, from, Ai Ai , Waterberg to Etosha. So on traveling down from Gobabis to Mariental we decided to go try camp at Hardap dam. Having heard good things but lots of negative things. When we got through the gate we were directed to the payment office, where we found a extremely tired lady on duty, so tired she could not have a conversation with us with out yawning and putting her head down on the table and saying how tired she was......really !!!!!!!!. But anyway when we asked if we could first go look at the campsites we were told, it would cost us just to go look 70 Namibian dollars per person, and 50 Namibian dollar per vehicle , no refundable if we don't want to camp, biiiiiiig yawn, when question it we were told it's government, she did not have to say " if you dont like it you can leave " her body language said that. No thank you NWR , Gondwana resorts are a bit more expensive but one can see where and how the money gets re invested into their establishments. No wonder Gondwana was able to close for a year during covid, and were still able to pay their staff during...

We came for a day visit as I wanted to see the pelicans and water birds, and I wasn't disappointed! The lady at the gate was friendly and process was smooth for day visitors. We were a bit confused about where to go for the game drive so stopped at the restaurant and talked to the conservation manager who was really helpful. He also told us that the dam levels were worryingly low for the time of year, and sadly, they think there will be a water disaster this year...we saw what he meant as we drove round and were even able to park on the dam bed where there should have been water. We went on a game drive on the Fish Route and my husband got to really test our Hilux and 4x4 driving skills, which he loved (me not so much)! We got to see flamingos, pelicans, spoonbills, whistling ducks, storks, and herons - including a black heron, which was a lifer for us. We also saw mountain kebra, kudo, steenbok, springbok, oryx and ostrich. But they were very skittish - I don't think they see many cars/people here that often. The baboons watched us from the rocks as we walked around the water, and we also saw some rock hyrax around the accommodation area. We had lunch at the restuarant and the views were stunning. Service was great and our food was delicious - the greek salad was...