Which 4x4 trail is toughest? Van Zyl’s Pass in Kaokoland? Or maybe Bobbejaans Pass in Lesotho? Some people think it’s the Road to Hell Pass in the Northern Cape. Albertus van Wyk did the legwork.

If you get into @#$ here, you stay in @#$,” says Piet van Heerde laconically. He’s standing on a rock to one side while peering into the rock-filled gorge like a maize farmer squinting at a threatening hail storm.

Piet, our guide and a Land Cruiser enthusiast from Springbok, and I are standing in the neck at the top of the Road to Hell Pass, which descends into the Nougaseb Valley and eventually the Orange River Valley. 

We have to go down there shortly … The Cruiser’s engine pings as it cools. Everything else is quiet.

On the way to purgatory

Yesterday afternoon I was still in a grey carpeted city office in front of a flickering computer screen arm-wrestling a telephone. Now I’m here with not a soul in sight – it’s almost like I was dropped off by helicopter.

It’s dry and desolate here, but it grows on you fast. The red sand bed of the dry Nougaseb River, half a kilometre wide at some points, zigzags drunkenly as far as the eye can see. It’s dotted with white grass tufts and green shrubs (balhaargras and volstruisdruiwe, the locals call it).

A small green vygie pops up intermittently – a soutslaaitjie. On either side of the river bed red black rantjies stretch into the distance.

Our team (Piet and me in his classic old 60 Series diesel Land Cruiser, Johann Marais from Stellenbosch and his son Schutz in a Land Cruiser 80 GXL, and Francois Smit from Bellville in a Land Rover Discovery Tdi, shared with Ken Cason from Cape Town) left Springbok on the N7 earlier this morning, heading north.

Most of spring’s indigenous flowers have departed, ahead of the summer heat. Only the teeblommetjies still give a slight yellow tinge to the veld.

On the way Piet shows me the Tandjiesberg and Rosyntjie-berg on the border of the Richtersveld. He also points out the Stinkfontein Mountains, Tatasberg and Blesberg.

About 20 km before Vioolsdrif we swing east off the N7 at a small, nameless square building. The building’s owner is busy converting it into a restaurant.

She’s also trying to sell some fairly decent stones and crystals to passing tourists with euros and dollars.

Sitting on the stoep, you will soon hear a buzzing fly or maybe a huge truck rumbling past on its way to Windhoek.

Our plan is to travel from here in a northerly direction along dry river beds until we get close to the Orange River, and then drive over the Road to Hell Pass down to the river. We want to overnight there and (hopefully) get out again.

From there we plan to swing east, following the river past Henkries and Goodhouse, spend another two nights at a river camp and then drive back to Springbok via Concordia.

Where we are right now, in the neck of the pass, we’re not that far from Goodhouse. We’re about 5 km from the Orange River, on the central part of the well-known and relatively tame Namakwa 4x4 trail between Pella and the Richtersveld.

But the Road to Hell – a pass built by prospectors for mining vehicles in the ’50s – is not part of this trail. It’s too rough. Way too rough.