Iona National Park

Where the Namib desert crosses into Angola it becomes Iona - the country's largest park, a wilderness of gravel plains studded with welwitschias (the two-leaved desert survivor that lives for centuries), red dune fields running to a fog-bound Atlantic, and mountains rising inland where oryx, springbok and zebra recolonise under renewed park management. The coast keeps the Namib's macabre glamour: seal colonies, seabird clouds and the bones of ships that misjudged the fog. Traditional herding communities live within the park's bounds, moving cattle between the seasons as they long have. It is expedition country - and among Africa's least-seen great landscapes.

What's there

• The welwitschia plains - the ancient two-leaved endemics by the hundred.
• The dune-and-fog coast - red sand meeting cold Atlantic mist.
• Returning game - oryx and zebra on the gravel flats.
• The herding communities - pastoral life continuing inside the park.

When to go

May to September brings cool, dry days and the best driving surfaces; coastal fog is a year-round character. Summer inland temperatures are brutal.

Things to know

Iona is genuinely remote: no fuel, water or help inside, navigation by GPS and experience, and travel wisely done in convoy or with operators from Moçâmedes - solo improvisation is how the shipwreck aesthetic gets new material. Wildlife is recovering, not concentrated; the landscape is the headline. Photograph communities only with permission.

Nearby

Moçâmedes' bay, the Arco lagoon's rock arches and the Serra da Leba road inland.

Key facts