In South Africa, we are suddenly in the world media’s attention focus with the Oscar Pistorius Murder Trail. All over the world people follow the court battle on CNN, Sky News, BBC, Al Jazeera… etc. More coverage even than our successful presentation of the Soccer (Football) World Cup in 2010. Much more cover than the birth of any baby in our country… maybe not as much as the birth of Prince George in England…
Bad news sells.
Now- my blog is just the views of a small rural town pastor in South Africa. I like to blog about beauty, and inspiring things. Things like motorbikes, and photography. Like adventure and great food. Normally my blog draws the daily attention of about 100 people worldwide. And I am so grateful about that, those regular readers and their comments are a real blessing in my life! My best day ever on views was 386 views in a day once, when I said something about a controversial thing in our church, and a group of people got real angry at me.
But now a natural disaster happened 20 km from my house. My favorite holiday resort got flooded when a dam upstream burst after heavy rain the past week. I share the news of my world with my regular readers. But suddenly, my views exploded! In the past HOUR I had 496 views, more than any previous day before yesterday.
This is what is happening on my blog at the moment:
From a best of 396 to yesterday’s 998 best ever, to today’s views… I am amazed! I wish I could rather have such viewer stats for good news!
Thanks for all the people visiting to find out about the bad news of the flooding of Klein Kariba.
https://vosperdruiter.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/from-drought-to-floods-in-1-week/
https://vosperdruiter.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/klein-kariba-flood-more-photos/
The news is still not good. The elderly couple that was missing: They were swimming in the indoor heated swimming pool, when the surge of water hit them. The water dragged them through the windows. The body of the husband was found yesterday, I did not hear if the wife’s body was found yet. And this is really scaring, if I just think how many times me and my family swam there. The last thing ever imaginable would be a surge of water dragging you out of there, drowning you and taking your body downstream… The couple was day visitors, they resided in Bela Bela just 9 km away.
So thanks everybody for visiting my blog. Please come again, I would much rather share good news with you. Like the beauty of our region, the wildlife, cycling, motorbike routes and great places to visit in our beautiful province and country.
My heart really goes out to the family of the deceased, and all the guests of Klein Kariba who went through this trauma. My heart also goes out to the personnel of ATKV resort of Klein Kariba. I see on their website they said they will be closed for just 2 weeks. A miracle must happen to get the resort up and running in just 2 weeks, after such major damage. But I really hope you get it done, because I really love your resort a lot, and wish you well!
The Rider 
Is die natuur besig ons te straf? / Is nature punishing us?
Dit is so waar dat slegte nuus eerder mense se verbeelding aangryp as goeie nuus! Dit is baie hartseer wat gebeur het en so naby aan ons. My hart gaan ook uit aan almal wat op enige manier daar betrokke was en veral die familie van die egoaar wat verdrink het.
Sad news. A similar tragedy happened in our country recently and many are still trying to recover.
This is terribly sad. My heart goes out to the family of the two elderly people. Do you perhaps know if they have found the lady yet? This bugged me the whole week end, so sad
Hi Carol, no they did not find her yet. The police with specially trained dogs are looking for her, but there is just no way she would have survived this, as I know the terrain downstream… It is very sad.
That’s how she rolls. Bad news spreads quick, and good news is slow to spread.
What a freak thing to happen! Very sad.
2nd time in my 20 years here… but so sad, it is such a beautiful valley…
2500 visitors …. Wow – what did you have on offer that day? Congratulations.
Pistorius, that was new to me … haven’t seen anything about his trail on TV – but I don’t watch the news that often and I don’t read newspapers, Never any good news – and it all about scandals. The nature is truly powerful. Terrible how much flooding it has been all over the world the last months. The weather all over the place.
Brilliant post!
Hi Viveka, it is today, about the floods in our region. And the stats are going crazy, it stands now at 4081 views for today- 10 times more than my best day ever as it was 2 days ago!
4000 is too good to be true … it must some bug or spam – you should talk WP. Can you see what country that is visiting you??? There are people in Asia that has programs that create viewing figure like that. But they don’t physical visit you blog. You should talk to WP.
And please stay safe … in the flooding.
No it is South Africans mostly, hearing about the floods and googling it, my blog came out near the top of the list. More than 3200 hits are from SA and most of the rest countries our people emigrate too like Australia and New Zealand. Nearly no Asian hits. But thanks, we are safe in our town, this flood was caused by a big dam at another holiday resort upstream, its wall broke with all the rain the past week. Our town is in the next valley, this did not affect us as much as our neighbouring town 27 km away. Our house is also quite high above the stream flowing through our town.
I’m gladI’m glad that our visits are authentic – that is amazing – that must be WP record, you should tell them. Glad that you are safe, but I feel so sorry for those that lost everything and more. And of course for the wildlife. How sad, but everything is upside down those day with the weather. Global warming is a reality. that
No record, lesley carter has 21 mil views at bucket list publications…
What is really, really scary for me- yesterday 10 March my blog had 15 707 hits with this post.
Wow, just enjoy … 15707 .. hits! I’m glad if I get 50. Be glad that they don’t all wrote a comment ! Amazing. Don’t know anyone that had so many hits, mostly I got 850.
Yes … a two-edged sword, alright …
unbelievable
I fully agree great post 🙂
If you want to see something really scary- watch this video of the scene, provided by Glenn Pretorius. The road next to these caravans is usually about 1.5 meters below the top of the embankment- watch for the fridge, and the red BMW drifting downstream… https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1432031473702202
This is really amazing, in the time it took to type this post, the views have gone up to 2732 today!