I was asked once by clients to take them to a place where they wouldn’t see a single soul for a week. I brought them right here, pointed north and told them that’s where we’re going.” As Caesar Zandberg, my guide and tour leader, reminisced, he stretched his arm and forefinger out again to the road that slithered down from the Grootberg Pass and through the ochre tablelands. We took it all in – indeed, it looked like a very desolate expanse. “Oh, this is nothing,” said Caesar. “Just wait ‘til we’re beyond Palmwag.”

The Kunene region is one of Namibia’s remotest corners. It occupies the country’s northwest flank, from the Skeleton Coast Park to the stark inland mountain ranges that parallel the Atlantic’s shores. Locals still call this the Kaokoveld, and often cite its even older divisions of Damaraland (in the south) and Kaokoland (to the north). The further you go towards the Kunene River and Angola, the wilder and more beautiful it gets – yet, as I was to see in the coming days, even out here it is not completely empty.

At the vast Palmwag Concession, just down from the Grootberg and on the fringes of the Namib Desert, is a magnificent wilderness set aside for responsible tourism and game drives. Amazingly, at one time this was a farm whose land was ‘tamed’ by ridding it of rhino. Today it’s also the base of Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) whose cause is a black rhino subspecies commonly known as the desert-adapted rhino. These hefty beasts trot up hillsides to escape the worst of the heat, drink only every third or fourth day and eat plants whose sap can blind a man. They are nothing if not survivors.

Yet by the early 1980s, poachers and hunters had nearly annihilated them. At their nadir there were perhaps 55 left, but a recent census estimated the population at about 130. Although that might seem like a spectacular turnaround, it needs to be tempered by the knowledge of Africa’s plummeting black rhino population: from around 100,000 in 1960 to perhaps 3600 in 2003. Some of the poachers from the past, men who knew the terrain and rhino’s habits better than anyone, had to be brought aboard the conservation – a few are even SRT trackers. I was told that their previous actions were not the result of greed; rather they were the consequence of being poor and needy. Today, so-called ‘Community Game Guard’ schemes – funded partly by tourism derived from rising animal populations – are increasingly successful.

We set off early one morning to try to glimpse some of these elusive animals. We would be aided by the advanced trackers who left at dawn, as the particularly wet rainy season meant the rhino were even harder to find – instead of shadowing perennial sources and springs, they were wandering far and wide, enjoying a spell of rich and plenty.

The unusually green veld wore a sheeny mantle of thimble grass and silvery bushman grass. Bluffs and rounded hills funnelled shallow valleys and watercourses. We drove for hours on tracks that ranged from graded to barely defined. Small, flat-topped hills, or kopjes, stood like sentries on immense plains with tantalising horizons. The light was brilliant, the space bewitching. Occasionally the forward trackers radioed directions or updates to our guides, and the morning soon resembled an elaborate and very grown-up version of hide-and-seek.

By around 11am, we spotted our trackers in a valley and headed down to join them. Two rhino had been spied nearly a kilometre away. We alighted and continued on foot, the usual procedure on a SRT rhino patrol. “Remember,” said our leader, “move very quietly and do as I say.” We walked in single file, climbing towards a nearby watercourse that held slightly thicker vegetation. There in the shade, about a hundred metres away, stood a pair of rhinos preparing for a siesta. They don’t like the heat, so are most inactive in late morning and early afternoon, though on cooler days they can forage without break. When snoozing they are almost impossible to find.

Keeping downwind, as rhino have a keen nose and sharp ears, we crept a touch closer. Although their eyesight is poor, we still used low bushes as cover – they are quite capable of blindly charging just metres past a perceived threat (such as ourselves) provided it stands still. No such drama for us, though the vigilant rhinos seemed aware of our cautious gaze as though they could hear our quickened heartbeats and muffled breathing.

While our SRT team headed back, Caesar turned northwest, shunning the main gravel road to Sesfontein for the backcountry tracks that wind closer to the Skeleton Coast and the Namib Desert. “Out here,” he enthused, “it’s all about immersion. Unlike Etosha these animals aren’t confined and are truly wild.” As we bumped across the thinning veld towards the Oronendes Valley, herds of majestic oryx and mountain zebra regarded us warily. Here there are so few visitors that its game is largely unused to man and vehicles.

We camped on a rounded ridge with wrap-around views of the rugged hilly horizon and watched herds of springbok grazing contentedly in the late afternoon sun. Through binoculars the next morning, we witnessed a pair of giraffes lumber up a stony slope in search of food, an almost surreal example of how some species have adapted to extremes of terrain and climate.

“You hear that kind of coughing late last night?” asked Caesar, who again slept on the roof of his Land Cruiser. This was lion country and though there were probably just a few around, close sightings were always possible. I had readily come round to the fact that this isn’t a region for close-up, in-your-face animal encounters. Somehow, it was beyond the almost zoo-like proximity of the classic Big Five African safari with its lodges and facilities, comforts and cost. This was more elemental, a marriage of stark landscapes and pockets of tenacious wildlife.

We drove through a succession of bleached river valleys, occasionally sighting kudu and ostrich. Caesar would stop abruptly, leap out and indicate old rhino prints and dried dung from the desert-adapted elephants, herds of which were marooned here once Etosha was fenced off. Admired for their uncanny ability to find and remember water sources, these rather prickly characters are among Kunene’s most sought-after sights.

Long-billed larks (whose call resembled the whine of a falling bomb), Ludwig’s Bustards and the odd snake eagle lent occasional company. For hours we crossed an immense bleak gravel plain with hardly a blade of grass and just a handful of oryx shimmering in the afternoon heat. A grove of mopane trees shaded our next camp in the Modderib Valley. As I made off to scramble up a low ridge, Caesar reminded me to steer clear of bushes and thickets, “because you don’t want to surprise what you never know is in there.” It was only from the top that I glimpsed a troop of baboons; they were capering on rocky ledges a little way down the valley and, recalling stories of their aggression, it was my turn to be wary.

The nearby Haonib Valley marks Palmwag’s northern boundary; from here onward stretched an unusually green Kaokoland. If the grasslands were a surprise, the sight of the Hoarusib River in full spate was extraordinary. Water washed over the bonnet as Caesar gunned the engine, but we made it across to Puros and its community-run campsite.

An aspect of developing tourism in the far north, simple campsites like this involve the rural communities and put money directly into them. Many work in tandem with the creation of conservancies, where communal land is zoned and managed to combine farming, grazing and wildlife conservation with an equitable distribution of the resulting income. An organisation called Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), together with the Namibian Government, has been instrumental in this process, and around 30 Kunene communities – 8000 people, including many semi-nomadic Himba and Herero pastoralists – are currently involved.

At Puros, a tiny slip of a place backed by the Etendeka Range, you almost wonder where everyone is. Even the elephants, numerous just days earlier, had moved on, leaving us with just the occasional warning sign about feeding them. Another vast gravel plain rises gently to the north. Beyond the Khumib Valley, we encountered increasing sand punctuated by rocky outcrops that grew into weirdly eroded hills and even fingers of granite.

As the Hartmaan’s Range reared on the horizon, we caught sight of the amber dunes that mark the north east fringes of the Skeleton Coast Park. This was our final camp, desolate yet hauntingly beautiful. At dusk, nature dealt an ace with a brief passing squall over the Hartmaan’s, a fleeting rainbow in its wake and a mauve sky – affirmation that one of the best times to visit is the tail end of the (potentially) rainy season.

The muscular mountains extend all the way to the Kunene River and, following the unusually green-tinged basin, we paused by a compelling bare hill. Its nooks and crannies were stained from the dung of rock hyraxes and we clambered up to soak up the tremendous views. The main track descends gently from here towards a tiny airstrip, and then more sharply through banks of sand and cliffs to the Kunene River and the Angolan border.

Human life out here bestrides two almost grotesque extremes. Much as they’ve always done, a few Himba families eke out the harshest of lives with their hardy goats and tiny, simple huts. And there’s Serra Cafema, a wonderful shady lodge beside the river where crocodiles sometimes languish beneath its stilted cottages. It is possibly Namibia’s last word in isolation. “Most people fly in,” they told us, “so how was the drive?” Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Amar Grover travelled with Caesar Zandberg’s Kunene Tours and Safaris (www.kunenetours.com).