General News

Last evening featured a beautiful sunset over Soutkop mountain at Sandstone. Hendrik Coen captured the moment.

Are you ready for Easter at Sandstone? Don't miss the Easter Steam and Cosmos Festival, April 7th to10th 2023.

The Cosmos is starting to bloom and waiting for you! Just have a look at our photo gallery. You won’t want to miss it!

We have received a few queries relating to the condition of the roads in the Sandstone area. The roads are not in very good condition and careful driving at a fairly low speed is mandatory. A great deal of the tarmac has now been scraped off the road surface leaving, in effect, a dirt road but the potholes are still there. I am sure that you all want to be at Sandstone for Easter, and we would love you to be there, it will just take a little longer to drive for the last 30km or so.

We will be offering flips in a Tiger Moth so here is a taster of the planes you can see together with steam. Join us from Friday 7th to Monday 10th April 2023!

We thought we would feature this spectacular picture of the mountain above Vailima Siding with Soutkop in the back ground, to its left, just because it is such a stunning photograph. The larger mountain is affectionately referred to as “Sandstone Mountain” but is known as Twalaboholo by the locals!

We hope you enjoy it. Picture by Mr Wilfred Mole.

As most people are aware, Sandstone Estates, the home of the Sandstone Heritage Collection, is a working commercial farm with a variety of crops, one of which is wheat. The weather lately, in the Eastern Free State of South Africa has been plagued by heavy rains which has made harvesting the wheat quite challenging. As is often the case vehicles from  the Heritage Collection are brought in to assist. Our sunset photo gallery shows our 1990 Kenworth truck with the trailer for the harvested grain plus the ex-British military HET Tank Tractor on standby duties to haul the IH combine out of difficulty in the very damp ground with the Kenworth in the final picture ready for unloading at the farm silos.

We have had many comments about the state of the R26 road leading to Sandstone Estates and roads in the surrounding area. It seems now that the DA has got a commitment for the Free State Government to undertake an upgrade of the R26 from Bethlehem to Ladybrand. We hope this is not just electioneering for the next General election in South Africa!

Make a date in your diary for our next event. The Easter Steam and Cosmos Festival from Friday 7th April to Monday 10th April 2023. We shall be running a longer section of the Sandstone Steam Railway to Vailima Siding with a variety of locomotives for a longer round trip. We shall also be offering flips in a vintage aircraft during the weekend as well as our other attractions, the Sandstone Oxen, Military Vehicles, Vintage tractors, Cars and Buses plus full catering at the Waenhuis Restaurant.

Easter is also the time when our Cosmos will be in full bloom! Enjoy our photo gallery!
Self-catering and campsite accommodation is available. For more details and bookings contact Mariette on 064 752 3852 or via the "Contact Us" tab on our website. www.sandstone-estates.com

Sandstone-Simply Unforgettable!

Mark and Gary Ruddy are from our railway support team and hail from Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape. In between their hard work for Sandstone they captured a number of short video clips of the recent Cherry Festival. Enjoy the show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm675BgfeVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xg9vuV2hh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NIlLP-s0iM

Gerhard Van Der Gryp was one of our volunteer team for the Military Vehicles action at the recent Chery festival. His wife , Marie, was left to her own devices for a while and put together a video scrapbook of short clips of the weekend happenings. Enjoy the show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIjtzGmsj5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1zrGuIY6EQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAR0vMOKlEA

Go Trip Tours, run by Caro Meiring, brought two separate groups of visitors to Sandstone Estates just before the Cherry Steam Festival on the 18^th November. Both groups enjoyed a train ride and a tour of all the Heritage Collection. They had a wonderful time and were extremely complimentary about their experience at Sandstone. Caro Meiring tells the tale of two visits!

Go Trip delivers a professional service for unique travels throughout Southern Africa and was founded in 2021. We really love what we do and it shows in the intense passion we have for people.  We work with a network of amazing establishments, excursion enthusiasts, transport companies and extraordinary guides to create a perfect getaway.