The Elephant Hall in Letaba Rest Camp, in the Kruger National Park, allows a deeper appreciation of just how big the African elephant really is…
“Scale” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
And de Wets Wild was awarded Runner Up in the category “Best Environmental Blog”!
Thank you very much to every one of our friends here at de Wets Wild who voted for us and provided regular encouraging comments while we waited for the results to be announced. Your support means so much to us, and we hope you will continue to stick with us for years to come, as we continue to bring the beauty of South Africa’s wild places to you. THANK YOU!
Congratulations also to all the winners and runners-up in the various categories. There’s some well-known names and brands appearing in the list, all of them doing South Africa proud.
Finally, a big word of thanks to the organizers and judges of the 2014 South African Blog Awards!
The fantastic Kumasinga Hide is one of the uMkhuze Game Reserve‘s major attractions. The hide is built in the middle of a natural-looking waterhole and offers uninterrupted views and excellent photographic opportunities right around. During our visit to uMkhuze in December 2014 we spent several hours every day at the hide, enthralled by the spectacle of literally hundreds of animals and birds making their way to the water to slake their thirst in the oppressive summer heat.
We have lots more to share from our uMkhuze visit, so please join us again next week!
The Bourke’s Luck Potholes, at the confluence of the Treur and Blyde Rivers, form the head of the Blyde River Canyon, the third biggest canyon on earth.
“Depth” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
uMkhuze Game Reserve, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, has a lot to offer any nature lover, no matter where their interests lie. One of the reserve’s biggest drawcards is the Nsumo Pan, a large body of water fed by the Mkuzi River. Nsumo is home to breeding pink-backed and great white pelicans, hippos and crocodiles, among the huge variety of birds and animals that live along its reed and fever-tree lined shores. The reserve authorities have made it really easy to enjoy Nsumo’s magic: a tar road skirts a part of its northern banks, there are two bird-viewing platforms at the water’s edge and a beautiful picnic site with clean ablutions and braai (barbeque) facilities.
We have lots more to share in upcoming posts about our December visit to uMkhuze Game Reserve 😀
There’s just something so very special about Ithala Game Reserve that causes us to return year after year. Maybe it is the spectacular scenery or the amazingly diverse wildlife. Maybe it’s the friendly, hospitable staff members that makes us feel so welcome. Whatever the reason (and we suppose it has to be the entire package), there was no way we couldn’t include Ithala in the itinerary of our “summer in the bush” December holidays.
Ithala’s only 197km from Chelmsford Nature Reserve, and we arrived in the morning of the 15th of December under heavily laden skies. In fact, we’d see very little sunshine during our three night stay in comfortable Ntshondwe, Ithala’s award-winning resort.
Ntshondwe, Ithala, December 2014
The reserve has a good network of all-weather gravel roads, and the rain did not interfere with our game-viewing to any large degree, although we weren’t able to enjoy quite as many picnics as we had hoped to. While we didn’t have any sightings of the predators that roam Ithala’s diverse habitats (mostly at night) on this trip, the numerous herds of large herbivores were a sight to behold.
The elephants at Ithala are shy and seldomly seen, so we count ourselves very lucky to have had two sightings of them on this trip. One sighting was of a big herd near Ngubhu Picnic Site, moving along a drainage line some distance away. The second sighting however was a thrilling affair as we happened upon two young bulls right in the road, near gate closing time, around a bend between the Ngulumbeni Loop and camp. One of the bulls hightailed it deep into the bush as soon as we appeared around the corner, but his companion decided to give us a good show for quite a while, not prepared to relinquish his spot on the road to let us pass.
Whenever there was a break in the rain, we’d undertake short walks around Ntshondwe, enjoying the opportunity to get closer to some of Ithala’s smaller and more delicate inhabitants.
Ithala in summer is a bird-watcher’s delight, and even us, relatively novice “twitchers”, managed to seek out and identify a wide variety of the reserve’s feathered denizens, despite the mostly inclement weather.
Before leaving Ithala for uMkhuze Game Reserve, we took a short, final early morning drive towards the gate and Onverwacht Loop, and were rewarded for our effort by a herd of giraffe moving serenely along the horizon, dark clouds and the sun struggling to break through providing a dramatic background to the scene.
Reason enough to return to Ithala? Absolutely! Not that we need an excuse, this place has had us under its spell for so long we won’t be able to stay away.
What is this white rhino trying to tell us?
“Express yourself” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
We were fortunate to witness these two plains zebras settling a dispute at Ithala Game Reserve, during our recent summer visit there. They were so close to our vehicle we almost felt every bite and kick they dealt one another…
More from Ithala soon!
We kicked off our recent “summer in the bush” holidays with a two night stay at Chelmsford Nature Reserve near the town of Newcastle, in the north-west of Kwazulu-Natal Province. Chelmsford may be a tiny reserve as far as African game parks go, but it is a very important piece of conservation estate, conserving South Africa’s largest population of locally endangered oribi antelope.
We stayed in one of the comfortable two-bedroom self-catering chalets at Leokop Camp, right on the banks of the Ntshingwayo Dam. The reserve was busy with holidaymakers coming to enjoy the great watersport opportunities and picnics at the water’s edge, while others, like the de Wets, enjoyed the reserve’s more natural attractions.
Chelmsford Nature Reserve, December 2014
Zebra and black wildebeest at ease while visitors picnic in the background
After unpacking, we were off to explore the wonders of this special little reserve that’s crept so deep into our hearts. These plains zebra entertained us with the running of the Chelmsford Derby…
Being a grassland reserve, Chelmsford hosts large populations of plains game, including the already mentioned oribi and zebra, black wildebeest, blesbuck, and springbok, one of our national emblems. There’s no large predators at Chelmsford, but smaller carnivores like yellow mongoose and cape fox are well represented and frequently encountered.
The reserve is surrounded by farmland, and this fence-jumping cow was an unexpected find during one of our drives.
Because there’s no dangerous man-eating predators lurking in Chelmsford’s grasslands, visitors are free to explore the reserve on foot, making it easier to appreciate its smaller, less obvious, inhabitants.
Bird-watching is another pastime to revel in at Chelmsford, especially as the reserve is home to several special bird species, like the blue crane (our national bird).
For such a small piece of land, Chelmsford offers an amazing variety of scenery. Leokop-hill is an ever-present element, as is the dam, making for dramatic vistas at sunrise and sunset over the wide-open spaces.
Chelmsford may only be a small reserve without any of the charismatic Big-5 African animals, but to those that take the time to get to know it better there’s a chest of treasures waiting to be unearthed and savored. We’ll be back, that’s for sure.
Sunrise over the Midmar Dam Nature Reserve in the Midlands of Kwazulu-Natal
“Serenity” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge.
DeWetsWild 