Newsletters 2021
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Latest News - October 2021
Greetings from a very wet Johannesburg! After an icy-cold winter (at least 19 record low temperatures were recorded), meteorologists are now predicting that we are going to be in for an unusually high rainfall season as well. In a water-stressed country like South Africa this is always good news, although everyone is hoping that we don’t end up with floods as we did back in February earlier this year. Like everywhere else in the world, it is easy to see how climate patterns in this country have changed in what has been a relatively short period of time. Whether this is part of a ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - September 2021
Greetings once again from South Africa! Back in May we told you that experts were predicting a long and very cold winter, and they weren’t wrong. With a least 10 separate snowfall events and a series of cold fronts which swept through the country, this has been one of the coldest winters in decades, if not in living memory. Snow was recorded in some very unusual locations, and ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - August 2021
Greetings once again! July was a tumultuous month in South Africa, to say the least. COVID-19 numbers spiked again, riots broke out across much of the country (ostensibly because of the imprisonment of ex-president Jacob Zuma), and temperatures plummeted during one of the worst cold spells experienced in decades. But South Africans are resilient, and it was heartening to see how everyone came together to get through this difficult period. Onward and upward! Just when we thought that we were going to get away with a fairly mild winter, the weather gods decided otherwise. A series of cold fronts supported by icy polar winds swept across the country ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - July 2021
Greetings once more from South Africa. It’s hard to believe, but we already more than halfway through the calendar year. It seems just yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas and New Year! Thankfully, it has been a better year than 2020 so far, with regards to COVID-19 lockdowns and regulations; let us hope that things continue to improve, all around the world. South Africa is now well into a third wave of new infections, driven mainly by the Delta variant which first reared its ugly head in India. Fortunately, it seems that all of the different vaccines are extremely effective against this new variant, at least as far as ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - June 2021
Greetings from a cold South Africa! Winter has set in, and, as predicted, COVID-19 cases here have begun to rise again as people start to congregate indoors. Although the numbers are still fairly low, there are definite indications that the country is entering a third wave of new infections. The vaccine rollout has been relatively slow so far, with mainly just health professionals and persons over 60 being vaccinated, but the number of vaccination centers is increasing, and it is hoped that the majority of the population will receive their shots within the next 6 months. New cases in the USA are way down at the moment, but now is not the time to become complacent. As of today, less than half of the USA population has been fully vaccinated (41%), and it is still ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - May 2021
Greetings once again from South Africa. Winter is suddenly upon us, and the last few days have been freezing cold after tons of snow fell on the Drakensberg Mountains. This has come very early in the year (we normally don’t have snow until about July) and, according to the experts, it seems that we are going to have a longer and colder winter than usual. Time to haul out those winter woollies! Our first tour of the year has been completed, under the able leadership and guidance of Liam and Franza (see picture). By all accounts, the game viewing in both the Timbavati and the Addo ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - April 2021
Greetings from South Africa! The weather is perfect at this time of the year - warm days and cool nights, and just the occasional thunderstorm to break the monotony. It is starting to get a bit colder (we have already had our first snowfall on the Drakensberg Mountains), but it really is the best time of the year to be out and about in the wild blue yonder! It is now exactly 12 months since the first lockdown restrictions were imposed in South Africa because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it feels much longer than that. It is has been a year of extreme ups and downs, drama, heartache and hardship, but most of us ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - March 2021
Greetings once again from South Africa. It has been a very strange summer so far in this part of the world, in that we have experienced very few of the hot and humid days which often occur during February. This is mostly because of the massive amounts of rain which were dumped on the country by a succession of tropical cyclones coming in from the Indian Ocean. The weather, at the moment, is perfect – long warm days, very little rain except for some afternoon thundershowers, and cool nights. March, April and May are always the best months of the year from a weather point of view. Close Encounters is a family owned-and-operated company, and once again, just six months after the loss of our mother Helena, myself, Alan and Janice were devastated by the passing of our father, Vernon, on February 10. Our sincere thanks go out to the hundreds of you that sent us messages of sympathy and condolences, but we can also take comfort in the knowledge that he has gone on to be reunited with his beloved partner of 66 years. He was a devoted and loving husband, father, and grandfather, an inspiring member of his church community ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - February 2021
Greetings from a very wet South Africa! The country is normally not affected by tropical cyclones (or hurricanes as they are called in the Northern Hemisphere), but Cyclone Eloise, which smashed into the Mozambican coastline about 10 days ago, continued inland and dumped lashings of rain on the north-eastern regions. This came on top of an already bumper rainy season, so many ... Continue reading |
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Latest News - January 2021
Best wishes for 2021, from all of us at Close Encounters. Make sure that every single day of this new year counts for something. We hope that all of your days ahead are full of fun, adventure, and all of the other things that make life worth living! As always at this time of the year, most of us take the time to reflect on the previous twelve months and, at the same time, mentally reset and recharge ourselves for the year ahead. 2020 cannot be viewed as anything other than a disaster for so many ... Continue reading |