The Tourism Office
Fezile Dabi District Municipality
P O Box 10, Sasolburg, 1947
Tel 016 970 8600
Fax 016 973 3903
Email tourism@nfsdc.co.za
The well-watered Northern Free State region with its rustic, rural atmosphere is just the place for your weekend leisure or stopovers on route. The proximity of this tourism region makes it accessible for residents from the Gauteng area (only about one hour's drive by motor car from the O.R. Thambo International Airport) as well as for visitors travelling to any other destination in South Africa.
Vast water surfaces and outdoor orientated conservancies in this area offers weekend getaways of a special kind and provide excellent leisure opportunities from hiking in the Vredefort Dome area to wine tasting at three recently established up-market retail wine cellars. Activities include boating, water skiing, river rafting, fly-fishing, hiking, mountain biking, horse riding and game viewing. Hunting opportunities is available within a well-structured hunting industry, which has orderly game farm management as a main objective.
A rich cultural-historical inheritance is reflected in impressive sandstone buildings throughout the region. These buildings and typical Free State homesteads tell the tales of elegance and grandeur from days gone by. Various sandstone buildings in the Kroonstad, Frankfort and Heilbron region are also declared national memorabilia. The battlefield at Vegkop in Heilbron and various battlefields in the Koppies and Kroonstad region where important battles were fought and events during the Boer Wars took place, are some examples.
The Vredefort Structure, in the Vredefort/Parys area, has been declared as South Africa's 7th International World Heritage Site, it has been recognised world-wide as the oldest and biggest meteorite impact site in the world and has become an important study field for geologists from all over the world. The Dome area differs drastically from the flat plains of the Northern Free State and the North West Province. Except for a favourable frost-free climate, the region is also rich in plant, wild and birdlife.
Although the Northern Free State became known as an industrial region with the establishment of Sasol during the fifties in Sasolburg, it is, however, an attractive, tranquil and rustic region. During the summer months the sunflowers and the pastel colours of vast cosmos fields surround mealie, wheat and grain lands - a thought for the eye and food for a weary soul!
