Forget the Big Five: this is a side of South Africa few travellers ever see

Think of travelling in South Africa and a few things immediately spring to mind: spotting the Big Five from a safari truck; sipping on world-class wines in leafy vineyards; or riding a cable car up Cape Town's Table Mountain. The more adventurous might consider a road trip, the most famous of which is the Garden Route, a spectacular 300-kilometre drive along the south coast.

But South Africa is a big country with many more roads to explore, and those who venture off the beaten trail have some impressive surprises in store.

In the country's heart is the Free State province, which until 1995 was known as the Orange Free State, a throwback to the Boer republic that it once was, before the Anglo-Boer wars. It claims five touring routes, but hogging most of the scenic appeal, in the province's east, is the Eagle Route. Picture dramatic mountain ranges rising up to 3480 metres, high grassy plateaus, dinosaurs (sort of), epic hiking and other outdoor adventures, plus a rich Basotho culture.

I've got four days to check it all out, but my first stop in the region, an easy three-hour drive south of Johannesburg, is such a gobsmackingly impressive start, I wonder if it's going to be long enough.

I doubt there's a better time to arrive at Golden Gate Highlands National Park than late afternoons when its string of gold and ochre sandstone cliffs start to light up under the setting sun. I'm glad we have a driver because my eyes are firmly on the sheer rock walls and buttresses that sail past, puncturing upwards from green grassy mountain flanks.

I'm ecstatic to discover that Golden Gate Hotel, our digs for a few nights, is perched on a hill facing the park's most famous formation, Brandwag Buttress, and by the time we've checked in and wandered out to the balcony, the entire view is framed by a double rainbow. I just about lose my mind in delight.

Golden Gate Highlands is prime scenic-drive territory. One main road carves a spectacular 35 kilometres across the high valleys and plateau at the foothills of the Maluti Mountains, and several scenic loops deviating off it are good for game viewing.

But you can also see wildlife on foot.

There are at least eight hiking trails in the park, from easy one-hour jaunts suitable for families, to slightly more challenging ones such as the short climb up Brandwag Buttress, to the adventurous 28-kilometre Ribbok Trail where wildebeest, zebra, springboks and other animals are often seen, along with the rare bearded vulture.

The next morning our guide, Abram, takes us on a three-hour walk to Cathedral Cave (a guide is essential for access), and we've not long set off when zebra, hartebeest and wildebeest are spotted grazing in the distance. It's very cool to be walking the same earth as them, but having left South Africa's game reserves only days earlier, it begs the nervous question of whether there are any lions out here. Abram assures us there are not. With the plateau averaging 1800 metres in elevation and rising to 2829 metres (snow-covered in winter), it's too cold for cats.

We climb gently, transitioning from open grassland to an increasingly shrubby and forested track alongside a stream that has, over millennia, carved huge sweeping hollows in the sandstone cliffs alongside us. Eventually, the path feeds into a narrow gap between the moss-smeared, sculpted walls to culminate in a hidden waterhole.

The brave can swim in its cold, deep waters, and the braver still can tackle the rope ladder at the far end, leading to another higher pool.

The park's open grasslands, backed by sandstone mountains, are ideal for horse-riding too - kind of like a green version of the wild west with smile-widening scenery and big blue skies.

From the horse yard at Gladstone Stables, our soon-to-be guide Jim rides out onto the plains and rounds up a dozen or so horses that have been roaming free. They trot back to be saddled up and I'm struck by how well-fed and content they appear to be. But then, who wouldn't be a happy horse in such a landscape?

Our two-hour trail ride takes us across grassy plains, over a few shallow creeks, up along a narrow ridge and back down in a glorious loop. Wildebeest graze in the distance, but my steed, Eragom, remains unfazed, leaving me free to enjoy the scenery.

Golden Gate's newest attraction is 200 million years old.

When a construction crew cutting a road in 1975 discovered a fossilised nest of dinosaur eggs - with well-preserved embryos inside - it represented some of the oldest dinosaur embryos ever found, and provided palaeontologists with rare insights. Further digging unearthed a nesting site with at least 10 clutches of the long-necked herbivore Massospondylus carinatus.

The new Kgodumodumo Dinosaur Interpretation Centre shines a light on this and many other fossil finds in the area, and no expense has been spared in its construction. Inside are lots of giant dinosaur models, a cast of the fossilised eggs (complete with tiny curled up dinosaurs inside - skull, backbones and all), casts of dino footprints, skeletons and loads of interesting information.

A short and scenic walk beneath red mudstone cliffs passes the odd "dinosaur" to reach the road cutting where the eggs were found.

We head higher into the hills across open countryside (the mountains ever-present as backdrop) and a few local towns towards Bothobapelo Country Lodge.

The road climbs and climbs, and then four Basotho horsemen appear, wearing traditional dress of blankets and conical straw hats, to escort us in. They're soon joined by six ladies in thick pleated red skirts, dancing, blowing whistles and making joyous, high-pitched ululations.

A Southern African Bantu-speaking ethnic group, the Basotho are the primary inhabitants of the neighbouring Kingdom of Lesotho, with large communities also in South Africa.

Some cultural experiences can feel a tad contrived (dare I say, occasionally awkward even?), but not at Bothobapelo. Grand welcome aside, it feels like we've just walked in on a regular afternoon of family and friends hanging out. Men and women sit around talking and playing music, cast-iron pots of food sit on the fire (naturally, we sample some), and a group of young men crouch over a game of morabaraba in the grass (a kind of South African chess, but played with twigs and stones).

You can stay the night here in exceptionally unique, rustic and cosy thatched cottages, but we've come for an afternoon's deep dive into Basotho culture. For four hours, we simply hang out, discovering wild medicine, doing herbal foot baths with the ladies, and learning how to stone-grind corn into a powder - a handful of which makes a quick and healthy snack while travelling, apparently.

When the women start dancing, I join them and I don't know whose smiles are bigger, mine or theirs. Later, they wrap a thick woollen blanket around my shoulders (the kind that keeps them warm in snowy winters) and fasten it with a pin, and I feel I'm being taken into the fold.

The community is so incredibly sharing - and just as keen to get photos with us as we are with them - that I can only imagine how much more I'd learn of their culture if I spent a night here too.

It's another hour to the end of the road at Witsieshoek Mountain Lodge, perched on a ridge in the Northern Drakensberg Mountains. South Africa's highest mountain range spans 1000 kilometres, but this northern section is the most spectacular and Witsieshoek's string of chalets sits right amongst it.

Green hills, rocky mountains and the dramatic Sentinel Peak, a 3166-metre-high basalt outcrop, fill our view, and hiking trails start almost from the rooms.

The region's star attractions are the Amphitheatre, a sheer crescent-shaped rock wall five kilometres long and up to 1200 metres high, and Tugela Falls, the world's highest waterfall (983 metres, over five drops) which cascades off its fringe. To see them requires a demanding full-day hike, but Witsieshoek is action central with an adventure centre offering mountain biking, abseiling, via ferrata and ATV quad bike rides too, so we opt to split our time over two activities instead.

Morning fog adds a moody atmosphere to the rugged terrain on the guided quad bike ride. It's pretty rocky and steep in a few places - occasionally challenging for newbies like us - but oh, those views when the fog clears. We follow it up with a four-kilometre-return hike to Mahai Falls on a narrow track traversing steep green mountain flanks. Mist periodically floods and retreats across the open folds of a landscape so big it almost overwhelms the senses.

With limited time, we turn around at the waterfall, though the track continues to The Crack, Gudu Falls, Tiger Falls, Cascades... Yep, this Free State road trip could definitely have done with some more days.

The writer was a guest of MW Tours, South Africa Tourism and Free State Tourism