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.

Why is the Eastern Free State lekker?

Frans Cronje who promotes the "Why is the Eastern Free State Lekker?" website (featured on our website in January 2022) has produced a video of some of the events at the recent Cherry Festival in Ficksburg. Sandstone Estates features in this video. https://youtu.be/5du9JYUHUUM

10CR number 771 is one of the main 3’6” gauge displays next to Hoekfontein Station. Built in 1910, by North British of Glasgow, the loco spent its early life working commuter passenger trains between Johannesburg and Springs before being transferred to main line work at Kimberley. The locomotive ended its days at Lorraine Gold Mine before being purchased by Sandstone  in the late 90s. Having spent some its life at Sandstone in a non-original red livery the locomotive is now receiving a coat of black paint while its accompanying caboose is repainted in red.