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Welcome to ERA in Freestate

Landlocked but abundantly fertile is South Africa's hidden province, the Free State.

Probably because most of its open plains have been given over to farming the Free State, with the exception of its mountainous Eastern Highlands, is not visited by tourists. Those who do take the time to know it find there is a special magic in its rolling fields of yellow sunflowers and immense blue skies.

Former president Nelson Mandela said the Free State made him happy, no matter what his mood. "When I am here I feel that nothing can shut me in, that my thoughts can roam as far as the horizons".

It was the space and obviously fertile soil that appealed to early settlers. At a small spring, surrounded by flowers, travellers outspanned their wagons and enjoyed rich pickings from the abundant game roaming in the veld. To the African tribes in the area the spring was Mangaung, the place of leopards. To the early Afrikaners it was Bloemfontien, the fountain of flowers.

A farmer, Johannes Brits, eventually settled at the spring but six years later was bought out by the British when a garrison, headed by a Major Warden arrived. Warden's primary responsibility was to be the official British resident on the central plains of South Africa. In the coming decades there was much to and fro'ing as to who was in control of the blossoming town. Eventually in 1854 the area was handed back to the Boers by the British after it was decided that this was a valueless territory not worth retaining. Today the Free State remains at the heart of rural South Africa and is a major producer of many of the country's staple crops.