FREE STATE TOURISM AUTHORITY
169 MTN Building - 1st Floor
Nelson Mandela Drive
Bloemfontein 9300
Free State
South Africa
Contact details:
E-mail: info@freestatetourism.org
Tel: +27 (0)51 411-4300
Fax: +27 (0)51 447-5114
Lejweleputswa District Municipality
Cnr Tempest & Jan Hofmeyer Road
9460 Welkom, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)57 353-3094
Tel: +27 (0)57 353-3095
Fax: +27 (0)57 353-3382
Cities/Towns: Allanridge, Boshof, Bothaville, Brandfort, Bultfontein, Dealesville, Hennenman, Hertzogville, Hoopstad, Odendaalsrus, Theunissen, Venterburg, Virginia, Welkom, Wesselsbron, Winburg.
The region borders North West Province (north west), Gauteng (north), Northern Cape (south) and Bloemfontein (Mangaung-east). Welkom is the Capital of this District Municipality with five Local Municipalities located in Welkom, Bothaville, Theunissen, Boshof and Bultfontein.
Lejweleputswa is a region within the Free State province of South Africa. The name Lejweleputswa, means ?gray rock?, and describes the area in the Free State with a history rich in gold prospecting and mining.
The district lies in the north western part of the Free State, bordering on North West in the north and the Northern Cape to the west - an area that also lies in the heart of the country?s agricultural belt, and includes two of the province?s nature reserves.
Despite a long history of prospecting for gold in the Lejweleputswa, gold wasn?t discovered until 1948, when a borehole sunk to find water instead found lava, a deep-flowing source of gold ore that led to the establishment of Welkom.
As a result, this part of the world owes its existence to the consequent influx of miners and people who helped build a boom of mining towns, and a farming community that forms part of the maize triangle, the mielie growing region of the Free State.
Lejweleputswa has a beauty all its own, and the landscapes are given over to a rich combination of golden crop plains, rolling hills and distant sandstone mountains, the skies a constant hazy blue, from which even the crisp winters cannot detract.
Gold mines in the Free State also supply a large percentage of the silver that the country produces, and Lejweleputswa, whilst definitely the place to experience underground mine tours, offers far more variety than one initially thinks.
If the Goldfields Wine Cellar in Theunissen, Winnie Mandela House in Majwemasoeu, Brandfort, and the Aco tractor factory near Hoopstad are anything to go by, then Lejweleputswa is filled with hidden gems.
