If ever you want to know someone who has been to Hell and back a few times, may I suggest this writer is your man.

When I was working in Africa as a foreign correspondent and journalist in the 1950s, I had professional assignments that took me to the very door of Hades with its imaginative spectre of fire and brimstone, supposedly representing the evil after-life underworld.

My first encounter with Hell was in, in fact, in 1954 when I had to head to the small totally isolated settlement officially named as Hell, situated in the heart of the rugged and craggy Swartberg Mountains within South Africa’s Cape Province.

On that occasion, I had to endure well over 150 kilometres of some of the world’s worst mountainside driving, even worse than the infamous Khyber Pass in Pakistan, along which I had travelled as a younger man literally on blood, sweat and occasional beers.

The track to Hell, on which I found myself 68 years ago, snaked through and over 3,500 feet of some of Africa’s most dry rocky and naked mountainsides with sheer instant-death drops only inches from the side of one’s hard-working vehicle tyres.

At the time I made my journey to Hell, the tiny settlement was reputed to be the most isolated place in the southern part of the continent. It consisted of a short and narrow valley between sheer formidable mountainsides that looked more like a moonscape than anything on this earth.

Geographically, and in the words of the small coterie of hardy locals living and eking out a living in an unknown world, the mountains surrounding Hell are known as part of the Grand Gambaskloof Range.

To get there, however, I had to motor through possibly the most tortuous and dangerous track ever scraped out by man.

During this particular journey to Hell, I had to repair two of my vehicle tyres, had to contend with a broken spring and a motor radiator that boiled over and evaporated at least twice as a result of the steep and long dusty African high temperature climbs.

Interestingly, since my adventure to and from the hidden valley of Hell, the track has been improved and now sees the appearance each year of the odd highly adventurous traveller in a modern four-wheel drive vehicle, so much better than my hired World War II Jeep, the only rugged vehicle of those early post-war days.

After many hours of stiff and dangerous driving, I eventually arrived at the front portal to what seemed to be the end of the world by the dubious, but simple, name of Hell.

But instead of being greeted by the fury of a devil’s fire, I was surprisingly greeted by the sight of a quiet valley resembling more of heaven than earth with a few wild antelopes peacefully foraging for whatever green and sparse vegetation they could find.

The only other available residents I came across were three elderly white soldiers from the Boer War days who had chosen to “go to Hell” to enjoy its isolation and peace and quiet at the end of a track more akin to Satan’s road to the inevitable.

These men could be regarded as being among the world’s first Hippies who built their own small stone dwellings and lived solely on meagre government pensions.

The reason for my having undertaken my journey to their Hell — and back — was to investigate reports of stone carvings supposedly having been made by original Palaeolithic men believed to have lived in the hidden valley millions of years ago and possibly being the first cooked meat eaters in history.

My investigations, however, drew a blank and I then realised that all trips to Hell are pointless in spite of what appears to be an arduous journey of getting there.

During my working time in Africa, I also had the good or bad fortune to encounter Hell again as a destination on the mighty Drakensberg Mountains in the Province of Natal with its mountain canyons, amphitheatres and rugged outline known as Hell’s Gate.

Then there was the time that Hell attracted me again to a small district in Natal, known as Hella Hella, which I had to visit before journeying up the great Sani Pass herdsmen’s trail that leads from an altitude just above sea level to more than 11,000 feet — and well above the cloud line to the secluded mountain kingdom of Basutoland.

Once again, I was forced to negotiate what was in effect a rough and almost impossible 35-degree path with literally hundreds of dangerous hairpin bends down which Basuto wool growers carried their bales of produce for sale in South Africa on the plains below by way of the backs of what were tough mountain ponies.

Like the Khyber Pass, the Sani has seen the deaths of many drivers whose vehicles have slipped off the narrow track to plunge a couple of thousand feet into an abyss of sheer cliffs and rock outcrops out of the reach of even the most skilled of mountain climbers.

After enduring these separate journeys to and from Hell in it’s different guises, I now know what to do should someone ever tell me in a rage to go there!

I also learned another valuable thought: In life, the safest road to and from Hell is a gradual one, without any sudden turnings but should have pertinent signpost warnings!