I ♥ Ficksburg Because ...

I ♥ Ficksburg

Hi, We're Dennis and Tereza from Malutizicht Lodge in Ficksburg.

Ficksburg IS BEST KNOWN FOR cherries!

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT General Fick's Monument which is in front of the town hall. The hall itself is a national monument.

THE BEST scenic PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN on top of Emperani Mountains.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS can be taken any­where along the R26 to Fouriesburg and Bethlehem.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD Dennis LIKES TO play bowls.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO play scrabble or paint and Dennis likes to play bridge.

I THINK THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT IS sum­mer, BECAUSE it is the coolest place in South Africa. Continued

I ♥ Bethlehem Because ...

I ♥ Bethlehem

Hi, I’m Evette from Lavender Hill Country Estate in Bethlehem in the Thabo Mofutsanyana region of the Eastern Free State.

Bethlehem IS BEST KNOWN FOR its beau­ti­ful scenery it also has a num­ber of his­tor­ical sand­stone build­ings, many of which are now pro­vin­cial her­it­age sites.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT the old ship at Loch Athlone.

THE BEST nature PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT Bethlehem Bird Park.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT the Bethlehem Museum and Sol Plaaitjie Dam. Continued

I ♥ Fouriesburg Because ...

I ♥ Fouriesburg

Hi, I’m Guilletta from Pumula Guest Farm in Fouriesburg.

Fouriesburg IS BEST KNOWN FOR asparagus, unbe­liev­able sand­stone rock form­a­tions; the 'Queen Victoria' is lis­ted as one of the 20 highest loose-standing rock form­a­tions in the Free State and the largest rock over­hang in the Southern Hemisphere while 'Salpeterkrans' is on the way to Clarens.
GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN INSIDE the old car at Jen-lee's.
THE BEST autumn col­our scene PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN any­where in the Fouriesburg dis­trict.
OTHER HAPPY SNAPS can be taken on the tractor out­side the Plaas Stoep Pub.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD, I LIKE TO have sun-downers next to the low water bridge on the S344 dirt road.
WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO sip some red wine in the pub next to the fire­place at the Fouriesburg Country Inn.
I THINK THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT IS autumn and winter BECAUSE because of the beau­ti­ful autumn col­ours and snow in Lesotho in winter. Continued

5 days — Cape Town to Johannesburg, via the Free State

Fields of Cosmos

Ah, the heart of the coun­try where the sun almost always shines, or at least for 340 days of the year. Swathes of wheat fields, cos­mos and sun­flowers with a back­drop of rolling hills, incred­ible sand­stone moun­tains, and roads that lack con­ges­tion, give or take the odd pothole. This is the Free State.

Right through the middle of this province runs the main route between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Called the N1, this road runs straight, very straight, through ter­rain utterly land-locked that is also the country's third-largest province — known as the bread bas­ket of the coun­try because it pro­duces soya, sorghum, wheat, pota­toes and sun­flowers. But how many of us have fol­lowed our heart's desire and spent time off the N1 in amongst the cos­mos and fields of wheat? Continued

Rosendal — the "new" Clarens?

Rosendal, Free State

I'd heard that Rosendal is the "next" Clarens and see­ing as we were en route from Ficksburg to Clarens and Rosendal is only a teeny bit off track we used this as our oppor­tun­ity to pop in and see the vil­lage for ourselves.  One is greeted by a fairly large ‘map’ of Rosendal when arriv­ing but to be hon­est we drove down a dusty track and thought to ourselves ‘what the heck is all the fuss about’ — in fact we couldn’t even find a shop of any kind!  We spot­ted a church steeple and being the intrepid, seasoned explorers that we are made our way towards that landmark ...

Aha — good move that was.  Almost dir­ectly oppos­ite the church is Turvsy Trading; a cauldron of enamel signs, antiques, bicycles, wool­len goods and just about everything else you could think of.  I walked into the shop and my jaw hit the ground!  It was like walk­ing into a regter egter trad­ing store 100 years ago; Continued

The Bottling Co in Ficksburg

The Bottling Company

I spent the night in Ficksburg last week and see­ing as din­ner was not served at our guest house it was sug­ges­ted that we try The Bottling Co.  We didn’t have much other choice and meet­ing the loc­als is what being on a road trip is all about so we fol­lowed the dir­ec­tions given and strolled the 300 metres or so from our accom­mod­a­tion in Ficksburg to The Bottling Co on Piet Retief Street.

The venue is divided into two sec­tions; the bar and smoking area in the front and the non-smoking area in the back.  The front area had a lot more atmo­sphere so although not smokers, we chose in the smoking sec­tion.  Continued

Oliewenhuis – The city of roses divulges a gem

Oliewenhuis

I love strolling through the ground floor gal­lery of Oliewenhuis. Every time we return there is some­thing new to grab one's atten­tion, usu­ally con­tem­por­ary — the museum is renowned for its con­tem­por­ary col­lec­tion and holds between 15 and 20 tem­por­ary exhib­i­tions every year. The works are, more often than not, for sale, so it's some­thing of a glor­i­fied shop­ping exper­i­ence. I can ima­gine acquir­ing some of these gor­geous works for myself!

Oliewenhuis is an art museum of note housed in a Neo-Dutch style man­sion that served as res­id­ence for the Governor General of the then Union of South Africa from 1942, and later became the offi­cial res­id­ence for the State President of South Africa when he was in Bloemfontein. It is also one of the high­lights of vis­it­ing the city, and a 'must-see' on anyone's itin­er­ary. Continued

Clarens entices, enchants and continues to appeal

Clarens

The town of Clarens has been on the lips of enthu­si­asts for years. It's used as the yard­stick for just about any town in the vicin­ity of the Free State, so I was curi­ous on enter­ing — not hav­ing vis­ited for about six years. Would the town have retained its artists' hide­away status, or would it now look a little jaded, over­ex­posed and over-commercialised, as I feared it might?

It is dif­fi­cult to beat the set­ting around Clarens. The pic­ture book town lies in the foot­hills of the Maluti Mountains and the Golden Gate Highlands, on the Caledon River, with views that are pretty mag­ni­fi­cent. Some four­teen art gal­ler­ies bear testi­mony to the num­ber of artists the won­der of the scenery has attrac­ted, and the sheer volume of people who pass through here speak of the need to return time and again for the pleas­ure gained in the out­doors envir­on­ment of Clarens — white water raft­ing, horse rid­ing trails, fly fish­ing and hik­ing. Continued

Bloemfontein – Wouter's 'time out' guide

Iewers Nice in Bloem

Pretty Bloemfontein bang smack in the middle of the coun­try, give or take a few kilo­metres, tends to get the cold shoulder when it comes to travel through no fault of its own, except that there is no appar­ent reason to go out of your way to visit the city, unless, like me, you have rel­at­ives liv­ing there. But one is sorely mis­taken to take the city at face value.

You've no doubt heard the ori­gin of the judi­cial cap­ital of the country's name, but for the sake of pos­ter­ity — it is Dutch for 'spring of bloem', 'flower spring' or 'foun­tain of flowers'. The reason for this descrip­tion might not become imme­di­ately appar­ent, if like me you visit out of sea­son, as the abund­ance of roses in the city of roses tends to hap­pen only dur­ing the annual rose fest­ival in October. Continued

Move over Route 62 — Route 26 is more than a pretty face

Route 26

This is one route you'll hear next to noth­ing about. And given the num­ber of potholes on the road, it isn't entirely sur­pris­ing. But fore­warned is fore­armed, and the route is no less beau­ti­ful for the gap­ing holes.

Aside from the advice that an off-road vehicle might be a good idea, although not essen­tial as we man­aged in a sedan give-or-take a couple of rather big bumps, this route starts just out­side Rouxville in the Free State, and hugs the Lesotho bor­der all the way up to Villiers just south of Qalabotjiha, where it joins the N3. Continued

Rouxville — a nothing-doing town or an ideal breakaway?

Street in Rouxville

The southern-most town in the south-eastern Free State, Rouxville vir­tu­ally falls off the map it so sel­dom makes it onto anyone's travel agenda, but as a des­tin­a­tion to get away from it all (com­pletely and utterly) the town def­in­itely qual­i­fies as one of the best bets.

At first glance the town appears to lack the attrac­tion of nearby towns like Smithfield — where res­taur­ants, art gal­ler­ies, their very own Boere mark and gen­eral joie de vivre (if you dis­count the local super­mar­ket that charged three times what it should have for an ice­berg lettuce!) — and Lady Grey — where a gor­geous set­ting up against the Maluti Mountains, close knit com­munity and simply deli­ciously restored homes win hands down. Continued

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