Transgariep Journey - 530km

BLOEMFONTEIN

Visit Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State, on your South African holiday. The city was originally known to the Sotho people as Mangaung, a name meaning ‘place of the cheetahs’. Founded in 1846 by Major Henry Warden, the British Resident in Griqua territory, the settlement was named after the abundance of flowers that grew around a spring. Since 1910, as the seat of the Court of Appeal, the city has been the judicial capital of South Africa. Bloemfontein 3 occupies an important place in the country’s history: here, in 1912, the South African Native National Congress (renamed in 1923 as the African National Congress) was formed.

One of the best ways to appreciate the city’s many historic treasures is to follow the Rose Walk, which consists of two routes. Among the places of interest are the Tweetoringkerk (1880), the only twin-spired Dutch Reformed Church in the country, the Presidency (1886) – the official residence of the last three presidents of the Free State – and the First Raadsaal. Built in 1849 as a school, the modest building, with its thatched roof and floor of smeared dung, became the first meeting chamber of the Free State Volksraad, or Parliament.

The Fourth Raadsaal, completed in 1893, is a magnificent sandstone and red brick building with an entrance porch resembling a Greek temple. Also of interest is the Edwardian-style Supreme Court (1906), the National Women’s Memorial, erected in memory of the Boer women and children who died in the South African War, and the adjoining War Museum. Highlights of the National Museum are a reconstruction of an early 1900s Bloemfontein street scene, an extensive archaeological collection – including the 250 000-year-old Florisbad skull – and the country’s largest collection of fossil ammonites.

Take a walk in The Free State National Botanical Garden on your South African holiday. It lies north of the city and covers 7 ha of cultivated gardens, lawns and walkways, while the natural highveld vegetation in the remaining 63 ha has been left undisturbed.

EDENBURG

...is an important centre for the cattle and sheep farms of the surrounding district. The town was established on the farm Rietfontein, bought in February 1862 to build a church. The Free State Volksraad (Parliament) turned down the first application for the town’s recognition, but permission was, however, given in March the following year. The town’s name is variously said to be a corruption of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital and birthplace of the Reverend Andrew Murray – for many years the only minister in the Free State – or a reference to the biblical Garden of Eden.

TROMPSBURG

It was initially named Jagersfontein Road and Hamilton, after the British Governor of the Orange River Colony from 1902 to 1910. Trompsburg was laid out on the farm Middelwater, owned by the brothers Jan and Bastiaan Tromp, when the railway line reached here in 1891. It subsequently became known as Trompsburg.

SPRINGFONTEIN

...is an important railway centre at the junction of the lines from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng and the branch line to Koffiefontein. The town was established in 1904 on part of the farm Springfontein, named after a strong artesian spring that surfaces here. The town’s history is closely linked to the South African War, and among the reminders of the war are the concentration camp (704 people, mainly children, died here), the camp cemetery and the separate cemetery where unbaptised children who died in the concentration camp were buried. Several blockhouses erected by the British along the railway line can still be seen.

GARIEP DAM

The town of Gariep Dam dates back to the 1960s when it was built to house the 3 500 people involved in the construction of South Africa’s largest dam. Originally named Oranjekrag, it was redeveloped into a holiday resort when the dam was completed in 1969. Covering a surface area of 374 km2 when full, the dam has a capacity of 5 346 million m3. Spanning 914 m across the course of the Gariep (Orange) River, the water backs up for 100 km behind the 88-m-high dam wall and reaches a width of up to 24 km in places. The dam forms part of the Orange River Development Scheme, which includes the Vanderkloof Dam downstream and an 82,5-km-long tunnel linking the Gariep River with the Fish River in the Eastern Cape.

The dam is popular with anglers and water-sport enthusiasts. Guests on a South African holiday should also visit the Gariep Nature Reserve along the dam’s northern shores. It can be explored along a 25-km network of game-viewing roads. The 13 500-ha reserve consists predominantly of grassland, and is habitat for black wildebeest, blesbok, red hartebeest, springbok, mountain reedbuck and grey rhebok.