Some great coverage of the recent Sandstone Easter Steam and Cosmos Festival in the Free State’s own newspaper, Volskblad.

Click here to read the PDF :
Part 1
Part 2

Our annual Easter event was a great success this year with good weather for three days but heavy rain later on Sunday rendered much of the Farm waterlogged for Monday which limited activities to train rides. To compensate our visitors we offered free entrance for the final day.

After a recruitment drive for volunteers before the event, we were able to offer more military vehicles in action plus more tractors and a portable steam engine that was fired by mealie cobs!

The Easter Steam and Cosmos Festival played host to our first photographic charter for 2023. Stimela Photographic Events, run by Jade Wilson and James Attwell from Johannesburg, spent the Saturday afternoon of the event at Sandstone. They chartered our Bristol bus which followed the various service trains running at the festival for the afternoon. James Attwell wrote to us after the event.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to each and every one of you for your outstanding efforts in making our photographic charter on the 8^th a resounding success.

Your tireless dedication, attention to detail, and unwavering commitment to excellence were truly remarkable. The level of professionalism, friendliness and expertise that each one of the Sandstone team brought to the table was second to none.

From the initial planning and logistics to the execution of the actual event, your hard work and expertise were evident in every aspect of the charter. The feedback we have received from our clients and guests has been overwhelmingly positive, and that is a testament to your exceptional skills and efforts.

I want to specifically commend Lucky for driving us around the estate in a safe and professional manner. My sincere thanks also to Mr & Mrs Mole, Mariette, Gert and every other member of staff that helped.

Once again, thank you for your dedication and hard work in making this photographic charter a huge success. We look forward to an exciting future!”
James Attwell

The Easter Steam & Cosmos Festival features on OFM.

The Free State’s leading radio station, OFM, is featuring the Sandstone Easter Steam and Cosmos Festival in the week  leading up to the event and Shandor Potgieter will be broadcasting live from Sandstone from 11h00 to 15h00 on Saturday 8^th April.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

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!