Parys with a ‘Y’? — stories from the road by Ruan

Parys with a y

Somewhere along the Vaal River on the Northern side of the Free State lies a little town that speaks a dif­fer­ent lan­guage. This lan­guage is shown through a whole Saturdays worth of antique and art shops. You almost find your­self in a dif­fer­ent coun­try at a dif­fer­ent time where red wine and dis­cus­sions on art are at the order of the day. In the back­ground of this little town you hear the calm flow of water that will at some point reach the Atlantic Ocean.

My first meet­ing with the little town of Parys is a saloon type bar a few minutes out­side of town. My bike becomes a horse as I stable it and enter the scenery as if part of a wild west movie, but instead of being an out­sider I am imme­di­ately treated as a friend. This sets the trend for a town that thrives on week­ends and rests dur­ing the week ... Continued

Pitching a tent — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

Kroonstad Sky

For more than 8500 kilo­metres I have cycled with a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat­tress not open­ing any of the bags at any point dur­ing this two month jour­ney. In Kroonstad I had to. Every piece of equip­ment still in its pack­aging and with the smell of new I pitch my tent under the stars of this Free State town. As the little piece of blue can­vass grows into a shel­ter from the cold night, I become excited and almost feel like that boy who pitched his tent in the back yard of his house 20 years ago.

I unzip the top sec­tion and from my newly blown up mat­tress I can see the stars hid­den away by a sin­gu­lar tree that would shade me from the pre­dicted rain. My thoughts start wan­der­ing and even­tu­ally ends at the point where I entered Kroonstad dur­ing the mid after­noon sun with a light breeze help­ing me for­get about the sun on my bare skin... Continued

A dam fine weekend — exploring the shores of Gariep Dam (Lake Gariep)

Gariep Dam

If your per­cep­tion of the Free State is that of a land-locked dry province far from the oceans then you’d be right. But also wrong. Slap bang in the middle of South Africa is an expanse of water so vast that you can eas­ily ima­gine that you’re spend­ing your days at the coast. Only here you can enjoy the views, the fish­ing and the water­s­ports without hav­ing to con­tend with sand, salt, wind and crowds of people. Just my kind of a ‘sea­side’ holiday.

Recently rebranded as Lake Gariep, the largest dam in South Africa cov­ers an area of 352 square kilo­metres when full – more than twice the size of the Vaal dam and even big­ger than some small coun­tries. In fact I could dazzle you for a good long while about mega­litres of water and cubic metres of cement in the dam wall, but the only really import­ant fact you need to know is that the lake is so huge that you can gaze at the sun­set on the hori­zon without see­ing land on the other side. Continued

Seeking the sun — stories from the road by Ruan Smit

We so often attach the concept of life to game, forests, water and people. But sel­dom do we see the life that farm­ing pro­duces. I am not only refer­ring to that part of life that feeds our bod­ies and nour­ishes us after exert­ing ourselves, I am also refer­ring to that part of farm­ing that can nour­ish the soul, and the Free State has much of that.

I see a crop of sun­flowers every so many kilo­met­ers around the city of Bloemfontein and it strikes me… the beauty of these yel­low flowers has much more to offer than oil and but­ter. That plant that shows its face only to the sun has a beauty that few recog­nize. The crop I stop at is big and the flowers at full bloom. Continued

Clarens in photographs

Between the high sand­stone Rooiberge and the Maluti Mountains, the pic­tur­esque little town of Clarens is aptly described as "The Jewel of the Free State". Clarens is situ­ated in the foot­hills of the Maluti Mountains in very close prox­im­ity to the Golden Gate National Park and the moun­tain king­dom of Lesotho ... view our new­est pho­to­graphs of Clarens and why not start plan­ning a week­end away to this delight­ful town? Continued

A rose by any other name – how Rosendal steals the show in the Free State

Rosendal Country Retreat

Rosendal has man­aged to get onto the map. I'm not sure how, because in search­ing for it you begin to won­der how the aver­age per­son gets there at all, nev­er­mind how the former farm­ing com­munity man­aged to find its way into the social whirl of a 'hap­pen­ing' little town. Nonetheless, there it is. In the middle of the Free State (see, I told you it was in the middle of nowhere).

Getting there from Clarens takes almost two hours because, instead of being able to get there dir­ectly as a crow would fly, roads take you in a rather cir­cuit­ous route via Ficksburg; you can't get there eas­ily from Bethlehem; and the N1 ven­tures abso­lutely nowhere near it ... Continued

Golden Gate National Park photographs

Photographs taken at the Golden Gate National Park in the Free State. The 11 600 hec­tares of unique envir­on­ment is true high­land hab­itat, provid­ing home to a vari­ety of mam­mals includ­ing black wilde­beest, eland, bles­bok, oribi, spring­bok and Burchell's zebra — and birds, includ­ing the rare bearded vul­ture (lam­mergeier) and the equally rare bald ibis, which breed on the ledges in the sand­stone cliffs. Ribbokkop, the highest point in the park, reveals a breath­tak­ing tapestry of red, yel­low and purple hues as its warm shades merge with the cool moun­tain shad­ows towards even­ing ... Continued

Scraps of Hope — Pre cycle-tour Free State visit

Scraps of Hope

You may recall lasts weeks post about Ruan Smit — the enter­pris­ing young cyc­list who sets off on his "Explore South Africa Cycle Tour" on the 13^th February. (see the art­icle here — Collecting people's stor­ies — cyc­ling 9000km in 70 days). Ruan will be send­ing us weekly snip­pets and stor­ies abut his exper­i­ences on the road dur­ing his tour to share with our read­ers — and here is the first. Says Ruan — "I'm spend­ing some time in the Free State, doing some train­ing and try­ing to get to some other towns — and wrote this art­icle for you ..."

"I’m in Ficksburg today, and I could tell you how beau­ti­ful the morn­ings are, that it’s at the foot of the Drakensberg, that before the rain falls there’s usu­ally a sand­storm that pre­cedes it. I could tell you that it’s the cherry cap­ital of South Africa and that the sun shines a blis­ter­ing silence dur­ing the day. But all these things you will prob­ably find if you Google "Ficksburg" ... Continued

I ♥ Clarens because ...

I ♥ Clarens

Hi, I’m Gavin Northcote from Highland View in Clarens in the Eastern Free State.
CLARENS IS BEST KNOWN FOR great scenery, the out­doors, res­taur­ants and gal­ler­ies.
GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN by a friend in front of NG Church in the main street. It is the most beau­ti­ful old sand­stone build­ing in Clarens.
THE BEST SCENIC PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the Golden Gate just 15 minutes out­side Clarens.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD, I LIKE TO hike on the many foot­paths, and play ten­nis.
WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO visit the many art gal­ler­ies and cof­fee shops.
I THINK THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT IS April and May, because of the beau­ti­ful autumn col­ours in the tree around Clarens. September and October are also spe­cial months, when the new green leaves of spring are start­ing to immerge, and all the fruit tree blos­soms are in full bloom ... Continued

It's the Ficksburg Festival, my cherry!

The Ficksburg Festival takes place this year from 18 to 20 November 2010!

Cherry Festival

Ficksburg didn't mean that much to me until I vis­ited the pretty little town set on the banks of the Caledon River. It lies at the foot of the beau­ti­ful Imperani Mountain in the Free State, for those of you who didn't know, and I had only heard of it before the fest­ival because a school friend of mine hailed from there (and since we were at school in Durban at the time, you can under­stand how she was regarded with a fair amount of  incredulity).

First off let me say that if you're a fan of cher­ries, then this is the fest­ival to attend. For the last couple of years at least, cher­ries seem to have given the shelves of my local Pick n Pay the run around. That, or they were in and off the shelves so fast that I didn't even catch a whiff of the dainty red stoned fruit! Thus a trip to the Eastern Free State around the third week of November may be the closest you will get to this delect­able dainty ... Continued

Horses on a Free State Farm

"Horses on a Free State Farm" was sent to us by Peter Taylor from Botswana. If horse rid­ing is your thing you might want to com­bine your hol­i­day in South Africa with horse rid­ing. The Free State with its wide open spaces and fant­astic scenery is an ideal place to do just this. See our sug­ges­tions on where to go horse rid­ing in South Africa or Free State Horse rid­ing if you are look­ing for things to do on your next hol­i­day ... Continued

Shout-out to all mountain bike enthusiasts

Aldam Lion Man

This is a shout-out to all moun­tain bike enthu­si­asts!!  Get out your cyc­ling gear and start prac­ti­cing because the 3^rd Annual Aldam Lion Man Mountain Bike Race will take place on 12 September 2009.

The first Lion Man Mountain Bike race was held at Mabalingwe Nature Reserve in Limpopo 9 years ago. The race has grown from under a 100 cyc­lists par­tak­ing in the event in 2001 to a very exclus­ive race that now allows a max­imum of 1600 cyc­lists.  This race is now rated as one of the Top moun­tain bike races in the coun­try ... Continued

Discovering Free State

At first glance, the Free State may not seem like the ideal choice of hol­i­day des­tin­a­tion. For one it is land­locked and has an eco­nomy based on agri­cul­ture and large-scale min­ing — which can lead to some pretty bland scenery. The Free State is, how­ever, start­ing to emerge as a hol­i­day des­tin­a­tion with towns like Clarens patric­u­larly gain­ing in popularity.

Free State Landscape

This small town, situ­ated in the foot­hills of the Maluti Mountains in the East of the province, has firmly estab­lished itself as a trendy des­tin­a­tion and offers fine din­ing, arts and crafts, trout fish­ing, and out­door activ­it­ies. This, together with its small town charm, friendly loc­als and mag­ni­fi­cent scenery has made it into a prime artistic des­tin­a­tion the town has become a haven for artists with a grow­ing com­munity of fam­ous res­id­ents. Continued