The Road To Hell, a unknown name to many, but a known one to a lot of die hard adventurers. A lot of people get confused when you speak about The Road To Hell, thinking that you are mentioning The Hell which is located in the Gamkaskloof. The Road To Hell is situated in the Northern Cape along the Orange River. It is part of the Namakwa Eco Trail which starts at Pella and goes along sections of the Orange River all the way to Alexanderbaai on the Westcoast, it has a total distance of 576km start to finish. Here Follows my experience of The The Road To Hell…
The Road To Hell branches off from the main route, approximately 65km before you get to Vioolsdrif. When you go off the main route, the terrain stays fairly the same with a constant rocky and bumpy trail which changes from two spoor over to jeep track. Gradient vary from flat to hilly and certain places 1:10 to 1:6 for sort sections. You follow the jeep track down the mountain, going along the contour of the mountain till you get to the bottom. There you are greeted to open plains that you would not expect to find here. the plains which are actually part of the main river that flows every 10/15 years when they receive large amounts of rain.
Now the fun starts, once you are through the open grassy plains, reality hits you as you see what lies in front. Mountain ranges consisting of rocks and high points. Slowly you get closer to the start of the actual Road To Hell trail, up you go on a small rocky incline where we already had to stop and let out some air of the tires and engage low-range on our vehicles. The two vehicles tackling the route, my father in his LC 76 and me in my 120 Prado. Both very capable vehicles as we have learnt over the years of travelling and 4×4’ing. Up we go on the rocky section that is about 400m and took 15mins to drive up. Gradient varying from 1:8 to 1:5 steep. We reach the top of the hill, and at last we see the view we were looking for.
This is the type of adventure we have been seeking for a long time, a trail on a lot of peoples bucket lists which was on ours to, but now it is ticked off. The total route length is about 4km, which consists of rocky terrain with limited traction and big boulders from the mountain side. Certain areas are very narrow around corners, and if you follow the wrong line a scratch or dent is a definite. The rocky section lasts for about 2.2km and then you hit the river bed section, a sandy section with trees and bushes with the odd rock outcrop to remind you of where you really are. Once all is over you reach the mighty Orange River in all its glory, we were lucky as the Augrabies Waterfalls were in flood for a change and the water in the river was higher than usual.
This trail is a must if you seek adventure to the unknown, a bucket list must have and you only have to do it once in your life. The views are spectacular, and the unknowns are the best. A trail which you will definitely not be able to do alone and you will need high ground clearance, as you follow the same route back and the back is not as easy as the down. On the way up again we realized that the traction of the loose stones help you absolutely zero, you must have a pair of gloves as you will be packing rocks and stones to manage over certain sections. And a proper set of A/T tires are a help, my fathers LC76 had proper A/T on them which was fine, I also A/T on which did not help me with traction as I could not lower my tire pressure enough without causing damage. I recommend a proper set of M/T tires as the carcass design is stronger and the sidewall is thicker which means you can lower your tire pressure to 1.0/0.8 bar on rocky sections to help with traction.
We had some bad luck on my side as we damaged my diff crown wheel and had to leave the Prado there without a diff centre portion, as we removed it on the trail to get it repaired. We came back a week later and installed the new/2nd hand centre portion and all was fine. To this day it is still running smoothly.
Will I do it again, yes I will and I will try to take some of my friends along who cannot do what I do. Just to show them what it is about and that adventure is not going to find you, you must find adventure.
This is my first blog for i-livewild and it wont be the last one. #watchthisspace #prado120 #v6 #landcruiser #toyota #adventure #youonlyliveonce