Free State Travel Guide

HOME Brochure Downloads SOUTH AFRICA Cape Town Metro Eastern Cape Free State Garden Route Gauteng Kruger Park Kwazulu Natal Limpopo Mpumalanga North West Northern Cape Western Cape AFRICA Botswana Kenya Malawi Mozambique Namibia Swaziland Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe Advertising	The boundless plains of South Africa's interior plateau between the Vaal and Orange Rivers form the province of the Free State, South Africa's geographical heart. The richness of the soil and the temperance of the climate have produced thriving agricultural industries of, among others, dairy, wheat, maize, cattle and sheep farming. The plains have also given a home to many who have sought no more than a place in the sun and a natural providence: the ancient San, the nomadic people first to raom this area and experience its gifts, and whose artwork, depecting the hunting of springbok, hartebeest, wildebeest, blesbok and quagga, is etched into the rocky, timeless surfaces; the Basotho - and the Nguni immigrants from Central Africa - who settled around the dark, dolomitic slopes of the area's scattered mountains and the dusty sandstone of its rock formations; the Voortrekkers, European pioneers largely of Dutch descent who fled the Cape Colony on their ox-wagons and in turn fought off the advancing British for whom the Cape Colony was an insufficient asset and the Free State a further step towards Cairo, an open-ended hinterland for Crown and Empire. Known locally as South Africa's 'bread basket', the Free State earth is cultivated by more than 30 000 farms to produce over 70% of South Africa's grain consumption. It is also dug into by some of the most productive gold and diamond mines in the world, and is inhabited by more than 4 million people. Reassuringly however,  nature rules supreme in the Free State despite the developments that have been made by its human occupants. The south shares the true Karoo semi-desert like a determined climber over the precipice of barrenness. The North, fed by the Vaal River, indulges gleefully in the richness of the percolated countryside. The West hustles and bustles proudly across savannah land of substantial mineral wealth, while the highlands of the East smile placidly from their mountain-tops, flashing inimitable natural splendour upon envious eyes below. This land of the windpomp and the krummelpap is the geographic and agricultural centre of South Africa, of the extinct quagga, of wars, of natural springs and open space. Most of all, of space: the land-locked but aptly named Free State is a vast, grassy platform for the soul to take flight and the spirit to break free.	click to view map DESTINATIONS COMING SOON
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