We encountered this bushbuck ewe this morning in the Queen Elizabeth Park Nature Reserve – the headquarters of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife – in the city of Pietermaritzburg.
“One Shot, Two Ways” is this week’s photo challenge from WordPress
Best to stay on the right side of the fence then!
Seen at the Sudwala Dinosaur Park in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
“The Sign Says” is this week’s photo challenge from WordPress
Today we celebrate de Wets Wild’s first birthday!
Thank you to each and every one of our friends and followers; those who’ve read, liked and commented on our posts, for your encouragement and support over the last year!
de Wet Family
“The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa – for he has so much to look forward to.”
Richard Mullin.
Giraffe at sunrise, near Lower Sabie in the Kruger National Park, South Africa
Our deepest gratitude goes to everyone that has contributed to us reaching this milestone by reading, following, liking, commenting and sharing our posts. We appreciate the friendships we’ve made and the inspiration and encouragement you’ve given us through this medium immensely.
There’s still so much beauty and splendour to share from South Africa’s wild places, and as we look forward to doing just that through de Wets Wild for a very long time to come we’d be thrilled to have your continued support.
Our sincere thanks, again!
Dries, Marilize & Joubert – the wild de Wets
Elizabeth Turner (elleturner4), the talented blogger responsible for “Dot knows!” – a delightful mix of beautiful photos and intelligently humorous writing that you’d surely enjoy – have done us the great honour of nominating de Wets Wild for two awards recently!
Thank you, again, Elle (everyone seems to be calling you Elle in the blogosphere – do you prefer that to Liz?) for thinking of us – it is always nice to receive a pat on the back and more so from someone as talented and experienced as you!
First off, Elle nominated us for “The Versatile Blogger Award” and, in accepting the award there’s a couple of courtesies we need to adhere to:
Acknowledging and linking back to the blogger that nominated us – Done!
Next give seven random pieces of information about ourselves, so here goes:
1) Marilize is a terrific cook!
2) Dries enjoys a bit of “plane-spotting” every now and then
3) Joubert has a little rabbit called “Snoesie” as a pet
4) Snoesie rules the back yard
5) Marilize is a passionate reader of fiction
6) Dries enjoys reading non-fiction only
7) Joubert, at three years of age is quite multilingual – Afrikaans is our home language, but he is quite accomplished in English and understands a fair bit of isiZulu.
And then the Grand Finale; nominating fifteen other bloggers that we consider worthy of this award, based on the following guidelines: “The quality of the writing, the uniqueness of the subjects covered, the level of love displayed in the words on the virtual page. Or, of course, the quality of the photographs and the level of love displayed in the taking of them. Honour those bloggers who bring something special to your life whether every day or only now and then.”
Our second award nomination from Elle is for the “Liebster Award” – in accepting, we have to mention and link back to our nominator (please refer to the opening paragraph), answer eleven quick questions about ourselves, and nominate eight favourite fellow bloggers for the award:
What is your favourite song?
Amazed by Lonestar
What was the last thing you ate?
The contents of the lunchbox Marilize packed for me…
Do you prefer to read from an eReader or a paper copy?
Paper!
List your five favourite movies?
Notting Hill
Robin Hood, Men in Tights
The Lion King
Miss Congeniality
The Hangover
What writing project are you working on now?
We’re working on a series on the nature destinations around Pretoria, another on the camps of the Kruger Park, and one on the big tuskers of Kruger – all to be featured soon on de Wets Wild.
Are you allergic to anything?
Not that we know of!
Do you have any real life stories that start with, “This one time at camp…?”
Of course there are many, given that we escape to nature every chance we get – the hyena incident at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a recent example.
How do you handle telemarketers?
Politely decline their offer the first time but then if they don’t want to relent I put my phone down next to the radio or television so that they too can experience the joy of listening to something you are not the least interested in…
When was the last time you wrote someone a letter by hand and mailed it?
1997
Besides writing, do you have any other artsy talents?
Dries and Joubert enjoy drawing, and Marilize is, as mentioned before, an excellent cook
What is your favourite joke?
Not a joke, but a funny saying: If at first you don’t succeed, then maybe sky-diving isn’t for you!
In turn we’d like to nominate the following eight blogs for the Liebster Award:
We hope that our nominees accept these small tokens of the high regard we have for the work they publish!
Our friends Marks and Joey, fabulous photographers and bloggers at mjculverphotography, have done us the great honour of nominating de Wets Wild for the “Very Inpiring Blogger Award” – thank you very much again Joey and Marks!
The rules for the award:
* link back to the person who nominated you
* post the award image on your page
* tell seven random facts about yourself
* nominate fifteen other blogs.
Seven facts about us:
1) Joubert is named after my (Dries) late father – is there any better way to honour someone who has been a profound positive force in your life? Miss you Dad.
2) Marilize is a qualified travel professional, and she operates a successful business making reservations for the public in a variety of wild places across South Africa.
3) I (Dries) work for one of South Africa’s premier conservation agencies – a childhood dream come true!
4) I (Dries) am colour-blind.
5) We’ve made our home in Pretoria, but we are open to any opportunities to move permanently to any of South Africa’s wild places.
6) Our home language is Afrikaans.
7) We are proudly South African!
In turn we’d like to nominate the following blogs for inspiring us!
We’re still very new to blogging and already we’ve come across so many inspirational blogs that it is very, very difficult to narrow it down to just 15 – please don’t feel unappreciated if we’ve not mentioned you!
Thank you to everyone for helping us out – we gladly and gratefully accept your vote for “Blog of the Year 2012”!
Thanks again to Jenn of “The Serenity Space” for honouring us in this fashion, we really do appreciate it!
In turn we would like to nominate mjculverphotography as Blog of the Year 2012: Through a shared interest in and passion for the beauty and peace to be found in the great outdoors, our path has crossed with that of Marks and Joey – a real highlight of our year. We are regularly blown away by the beautiful images they create through their unique style of photography. We hope that you’ll accept this nomination as a small token of our appreciation, dear Joey and Marks!
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The rules for the award:
1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award.
2 Write a blog post and name/tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.
3 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them
4 You can now also join The Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
5 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…
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What a great way to end the year: Jenn, the fabulous author of “The Serenity Space” has kindly nominated de Wets Wild for an award!
We consider the nomination a very humbling honour – thank you again Jenn.
What’s more, Jenn’s given us a pick of three awards to choose from: the “Very Inspiring Blog Award“, “The Illuminating Blogger” or “Blog of the Year 2012“. This is where we’d appreciate our readers and followers to decide for us which of these, if any, you feel we most deserve – please?
(we’ll close the poll by the 10th of January 2013)
Thank you very much for your contribution – we appreciate every one of you who have taken an interest in our blog, your thoughtful comments and most especially the online friendships we’ve forged since launching de Wets Wild. We look forward to much more of the same in 2013 and wish you all only the very best for the new year ahead!
For the final challenge of 2012, we decided to submit a selection of photographs of the various accommodation units we stayed in while exploring South Africa’s wild places this year (you can click on the images for a clearer view).
Have a look here for more submissions in this week’s challenge.
de Wets Wild is inspired by spending time together in South Africa’s wild places – as in this picture featuring Dries and an eight-month old Joubert negotiating a trail in the Moreletakloof Nature Reserve in Pretoria, South Africa.
Seeing our son Joubert grow up to appreciate and enjoy our natural heritage – that makes us very happy!
DeWetsWild 