Hel of a ride

South African novelist André Brink acknowledged he never could have written his haunted allegory, Devilʼs Valley, without thinking of Die Hel, a 20km-long gash in iron ore and sandstone deep in the Swartberg Mountains. Itʼs an odd story, for sure. A troubled schoolmaster meets a strange old man at the top of the valley, who says: ʻWhat took you so long…ʼ

Although the Devilʼs Valley location only exists in the psycho-historical landscape of the authorʼs mind, the Karoo town of Die Hel might have turned out just like Devilʼs Valley had its isolation from the outside world never been disturbed.

And so we set out to disturb it. Well, discover it. On this quest, thereʼs the doctor, whoʼll philosophise your soul out yer slippers, tinnie in hand, round the campfire. The can-do, MacGyver girl, who always has the coolest, colour-coded accessories but absolutely no sense