We hope you have had a wonderful and restful holiday season.
We celebrated the holiday season with an end-of year celebration for the Vuka Ingwe children, a staff braai and the “Out of Africa”-themed New Year’s Party!
To end off the year, the N’hlaralumi River once again flowed from bank to bank! Rainfall was extensive, with extended periods of soft, sinking rain - perfect for absorption in the soil, while minimising erosion. The veld is lush and green, with plentiful surface water availability. Overall temperatures were lower than expected for this time of year, while the daily humidity was high.
Our Fire Danger Index is currently at the “Moderate” level. Despite this, we continue to urge you to be cautious when making fires.
From the Ingwelala team, we thank you for your support through another successful year and wish you all the best for 2026. May it be filled with happiness, adventure and amazing sightings in the bush!
Lowest Temp: 17.0°C (Avg:20.01°C)
Highest Temp: 40.3°C (Avg: 31.3C)
Rainfall for the month: 106.8mm
(Avg: 87.9mm)
December Celebrations:
Vuka Ingwe Children's Day
We would like to extend a massive thank you to all who supported the Vuka Ingwe children for their holiday celebrations. From monetary donations to donations of stationery, and the offers to assist with a game drive for leisure, each person made a contribution to our staff children, and we are immensely grateful!
On the 20th of December, we took the Vuka Ingwe children on a wonderful and successful game drive on Argyle. We saw giraffes, impalas, hippos, lions and more - and the children had a blast! Following this, the children each received a gift - totalling 65 gifts! The gift packs included a snack pack and cooldrink for each child, as well as age-related gifts designed to assist with sensory and skills development, while also providing learners at school with schooling supplies. Communal gifts for Vuka Ingwe were also given, including children’s sports equipment, developmental games and a puzzle mat for the youngsters to play on.
As an additional gift, our staff were sponsored a new set of soccer nets for Vuka Ingwe. We would like to thank Shaun Gailey, Dave Howe, and Triangle Sourcing for their assistance in sourcing and sponsoring these new nets for our staff!
The staff would like to thank each and every person who made all of the above possible - it made all the difference in the world, and everyone is incredibly grateful for the care and thoughtfulness shown for the end of the year celebrations.
Staff Year-End Function
On the 23rd of December we celebrated the year-end with a staff braai. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate the ups and downs of the year, share learned wisdom, spend some quality time together and have a good laugh around the fire. We would like to thank you for your continual support towards the staff throughout 2025.
Thank you to all who were involved in the preparations, provisioning of gift hampers and logistics.
Members vs Staff Soccer Match
Following an amazing past few soccer matches, our staff once again challenged the Members to an end-of-year match at Vuka Ingwe on the 28th of December. The match kicked off with people of various ages enjoying some quality competitive time together, and with incredible support and energy on the side-lines.
After an incredibly fun match, the overall score was 7-6 to the staff - once again a very close match! We would like to thank all who attended, supported or played in another wonderful match together. We are always grateful for the opportunity to celebrate together, to engage in some camaraderie-building activities and just have some fun at Ingwelala.
New Year’s Party
To end off another brilliant, challenging and fun year, we celebrated the end of 2025 and the welcoming in of 2026 in style! Our “Out of Africa”-themed New Year’s party was a total blast, and we hope you enjoyed every second of it! We would like to thank you for joining us, and to everyone who dressed up for the occasion. A special thank you to the Yum! Factory for their delicious food, Jade Seidel for the incredible music, and all who assisted with the wonderful decorations and preparations.
Cheers to an amazing 2026 together!
Words by Tess Woollgar, images courtesy of Tess Woollgar and Jade Seidel.