Free State flats

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not dishing the Free State. It has some stunningly beautiful areas... but not on the N1. Driving the N1 between the Eastern / Western Cape and Gauteng is like pulling teeth.  The land is flat and the road just goes on forever.  After miles and miles of flat you go up a bit of a ridge and think there would be something interesting on the other side, just to be rewarded with more road stretching towards the horizon.

The only things one get to see along the way are windpumps, the odd farm buildings surrounded by trees planted a hundred years ago by the early farmers to create shade and perhaps some hills in the distance.  That's the scenery for about 600 kilometers. I much rather prefer the scenic Garden Route or even driving through the Karoo.

Its really a case of when you stop it's somewhere between nowhere and nêrens (Afrikaans for nowhere) where nothing grows about knee high.  No offence Free State, but I would rather prefer not driving along the N1 if I can't help it.  In December I'll make my way through the Eastern Free State towards the Drakensberg. I know that area is very different from this, so I'm looking forward to bringing you some different Free State scenery after then.

Twin Towered Church

The 'Tweetoringkerk' (Twin Towered Church) in Bloemfontein is one of the city's most notable buildings. It's cornerstone was laid by President Brand in 1878. It was built in the German neo-Gothic style and inuargirated on 7 May 1880.  Up to then the occasion was the biggest Bloemfontein has ever seen with about 6 000 people attending, most of them from the surrounding farms.

The church has changed its face from the old Afrikaans only Dutch Reformed Church to what is now known as the "Towers of Hope" congregation.  The services are attended by people of all colours, from white farmers and their families to homeless people living on the street in the surrounding areas.  The church also offers a daily (17:00) soup kitchen, food parcels that are distributed all over town and a needle work job creation project.  Other projects have started out of the church's vision with a teacher offering her services in the afternoons to teach homeless adults to read and write, young lawyers assisting the homeless with legal advice and two doctors who come in after work to offer medical help to those in need. Truly an example that could  be followed by many others.

Free State barb wire

The N1 through the Free State runs through a very flat and uneventful part of the country and although there wasn't really a feature to put in the background, I couldn't resist getting a barb wire shot at one of our stops.

National Afrikaans Literature Museum

The National Afrikaans Literature Museum in Bloemfontein is only about a block from the Fourth Raadsaal I featured yesterday.  This building originally accommodated the government structures of the Republic of the Orange Free State in the 1800s and is reminiscent of the old Cape-Dutch architecture in the area. The National Afrikaans Literature Museum, with the largest collection of Afrikaans literature and manuscripts in the world, as well as artifacts belonging to well-known Afrikaans writers, is housed in this building.

Standing in front of the building is a statue of President JH Brand who was the fourth state president of the Orange Free State from 1864 until his death in 1888.  The street on which the museum as well as a number of other prominent historical buildings stand was also names after him.

The Fourth Raadsaal

Bloemfontein in the Free State has a collection of beautiful historic buildings and statues all situated in the centre of town.  The one I liked the most on my recent visit was the Fourth Raadsaal. The foundation stone was laid by then Orange Free State President F. W. Reitz in 1890 and the building was completed in 1893. It is a Renaissance-style building in red brick with a prominent dome and a portico of Ionic columns.

The last session of the Parliament of the old Boer republic of the Orange Free State was held here before the occupation of Bloemfontein by British forces in March 1900. In front of the building is a monument (by Coert Steynberg) to Christiaan de Wet, a general during the Boer War.

The Fourth Raadsaal is now the seat of the Provincial Council of the province of Free State.  Good thing we were there over the weekend, otherwise the place would probably have been packed with cars.

Bloemfontein from Naval Hill

The city of Bloemfontein (Bloem meaning bloom or flower and fontein meaning fountain) is the capital of the Free State province and is situated roughly in the centre of South Africa.  The city's nickname is the City of Roses (although there wasn't really any roses in bloom around at the time of my visit. Perhaps I was in the wrong part of town for it) and its also the judicial capital of South Africa as this is where the country's Supreme Court of Appeal is situated.  The city's Sesotho name is Mangaung, meaning "place of cheetahs" and it has been included in the Mangaung Local Municipality since 2000.

The city (1,395 metres above sea level) is surrounded by the flat grass lands of the Free State which is mostly farming areas.  As there aren't many high points around the city, Naval Hill stands out quite clearly and for the best view of the city, one has to take a drive up to one of the view points on the hill. 

A panorama view from Naval Hill

Gariep Dam revisited

Two years ago we camped at the Forever Resorts' Gariep Dam Resort and had a marvelous time in the sun and next to the pool.  Afterwards I did this post on the dam.  Last week we headed for Gauteng for Chaos Boy to compete in the SA Trampoline Championships and stopped at the Gariep Dam on the way up to stretch our legs and have a breakfast picnic.

The Gariep Dam was commissioned in 1971 and was originally called the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam.  After the end of apartheid the name was considered unsuitable and changed to Gariep Dam in 1996.  The word gariep comes from the Khoi San language and means "Great water". It is also the original name of the Orange River which flows into the dam  and acts as the border between the provinces of the Eastern Cape and Free State. 

The road crosses the 88 m high and 914 m long wall and you can actually get out and walk back onto it for views both over the dam on the one side and into the gorge on the other.  Tours of the dam wall is also possible, but as we did it last time around, we didn't bother again.  Plus we still had two hours to go before our overnight spot in Bloemfontein.

This is the view back towards the dam wall

We also had a quick "do you remember..." stop above the resort, just for memory sake before moving onto the boring drive through the "flat lands" of the Free State.