Going through hell with a lot of sweat is one way of getting a glimpse of paradise
The road from Swartberg Pass to Seweweeks- poort has plenty to offer cyclists, writes Teigue Payne
Prince Albert is an iconic town with a mouthwatering array of eateries. But we tear ourselves away; we have harder things in mind — riding our bikes up the Swartberg Pass, which was designed by Thomas Bain and built by more than 1,000 convicts in the 1880s. Near the top we take a right turn and head down (and in places up) the road to Die Hel/Gamkaskloof, built in the 1960s at the behest of Otto du Plessis, then administrator of the Cape Province. It provided the first vehicle passage into Die Hel, an isolated but fertile valley in the heart of the Swartberg which was then home to about 30 families. Before the road was built, everything had to be carried by man or beast (donkey mainly) in and out of the valley. The valley is not hell, it is close to paradise. The people who lived there produced a cornucopia of many kinds of produce, including grains that were ground by water mills. The last of the original inhabitants left in the 1990s. Die Hel is now a national monument and part of...
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