Everybody dies,
so the saying goes, but some people never get round to living. If you're
worried you might be one of them, why not head south? There are few better
places than South Africa to experience just what being alive is all about. Here
are ten activities to send your heart racing, your mind reeling and your
stomach churning. Your eyes will grow big and round and then, slowly-as you
start breathing again-your mouth will spread into the biggest smile possible.
Which may explain why adrenalin is so addictive.
1. Fly Through the Trees with the Greatest of
Ease There are only three treetop canopy tours in the world, the
newest and longest of which is in the Tsitsikamma Forest on the Garden Route.
Securely strapped into a climbing harness clipped onto a strong steel cable
strung up between giant trees, you step into the void and zoom through the
forest canopy to the next platform. You can choose to go fast, in pursuit of
that adrenalin rush, or you can slow down and appreciate the view-it's not
often you get to hang suspended 25m above the ground, all alone in the canopy
of an ancient indigenous forest. Some of the slides are about 80m long and you
can let go, spinning slowly, looking down onto a virtually pristine forest
floor covered with tree ferns and mosses. Check out the construction
techniques-the cables are cleverly attached to the trees without causing any
damage whatsoever. There are eight slides and a rather scary, but safe,
suspended walkway.
2. Ride Radical
Rapids There are a dozen great rivers to raft in South Africa,
but a few stand out. Probably the best in terms of scenery, as well as rapids,
is the Blyde in Mpumalanga Province (aptly named, as blyde means "happiness" in
Afrikaans). Running through a dazzlingly beautiful gorge, this deep
turquoise-blue river offers constant action. Commercially-run rapids are graded
from 1-5, according to their difficulty. Here, a few gentle Grade-twos offer a
warm up before the action starts. Some compulsory portages are interspersed
with a good sprinkling of pretty challenging Grade-fours and -fives. Unlike
most commercial trips on big water, you don't do this one in a raft with a
guide-the river's too narrow. So, it's just you and your partner in a two-man
raft. Fortunately, accompanying guides in swift kayaks keep a hawk-eye on their
charges. Although this is an escorted trip, the Blyde is not the best choice
for a first rafting excursion. There are a number of milder options on
offer-including a gentler section of the same river. You can also join an
escorted kayak trip on the Blyde and aspiring kayakers can take a few days to
do a white-water course here.
3.
Kloof Wild Gorges Kloofing (known as "canyoning" elsewhere in
the world) is the art of following a mountain stream down its gorge, or kloof.
It usually involves jumping off high cliffs or sliding down sheer waterfalls.
Names like Suislide and Kamikaze Kanyon give you an idea of what you'd be in
for. Probably the most radical kloof in South Africa is the Mfongosi Gorge in
Zululand. Here you face two near-vertical slides of about 30m and another
gentler slide with an 8m free fall at the bottom (none compulsory). An old
favourite is Suicide Gorge, near Cape Town, which has a number of jumps over
waterfalls into deep pools. Once you've started, you can't turn back and have
no choice but to fling yourself into the void from about 8m - although you can
choose to make it higher. There are a few tamer options, one of the prettiest
of which is the Stormsriver Gorge on the Garden Route.
4. Do the World's Highest Bungee It's
official. The Bloukrans Bridge in the Eastern Cape Province is the highest
commercial bungee jump in the world. There's nothing difficult about this, but
you will need nerves of steel (or at least a good head for heights) to
negotiate the walkway onto the supporting arch of the bridge, from where you
jump. And then there's the jump itself. It's 216m high. Need we say more?
5. Skydive Cape Town Now, in theory, there is very little difference between jumping out of a
plane in one place or another, but only by skydiving in Cape Town can you have
a photo of your jump with Table Mountain in the background. That may sound like
a strange motivation but, if you fancy a picture of yourself hurtling
earthwards to put on your desk or your desktop, you may as well have an
impressive backdrop. First timers can choose between a standard static line
jump (the chute opens automatically), a tandem jump or an accelerated free fall
(AFF) course. The tandem is pretty self-explanatory: you're strapped to an
instructor, who controls the jump. You exit the plane from 3000m and enjoy
about half a minute of free fall. The AFF course starts with a static line
jump; then your second jump is from 3600m, with two instructors holding onto
you as you exit the plane. They stabilise you and then let go, allowing you to
experience true free fall, before veering away to watch you open your chute.
The term "fast track" takes on a new meaning.
6. Kitesurf Langebaan If, as a child, you flew those
little diamond-shaped things on strings that required you to run a ten-second
hundred metres to launch them, forget everything you think you know about
kites. Modern kites are not only made from high-tech, brightly coloured
materials, they are also awesomely well designed and can generate enough lift
to pick a Springbok rugby forward up off the ground. Head out to Langebaan
Lagoon, about an hour's drive up the West Coast from Cape Town, and see what
can be done with these outrageously fun toys. You could just fly one, but
that's a bit of a waste of all that power. So sign up for a kitesurfing course.
After learning the ground handling, you'll use the kite like a sail to move
yourself across the water, leaving windsurfers in your wake. Once you've got
the hang of that, you can move the kite into "lift" position and fly high above
the waves. While you're up there, you may as well do a somersault or two to
impress the spectators at the coffee shop on the beach. And when you come back
down to earth (well, water), you can utilise that same lift to give you a soft
landing. It isn't actually that easy, but it's worth learning and at Langebaan
you'll get the chance to watch some of the world's top kitesurfers strutting
their stuff.
7. Fly Like a Bird South
Africa is a fantastic place to learn to paraglide, both because
the exchange rate makes it so affordable and because you can qualify in a short
time as the fantastic weather means very few no-fly days. Learning to fly is
all about controlling your canopy. Once you've mastered that, you're away.
Traditionally your first flight would have been a hop from a sand dune, but
many beginners have flown for up to an hour on their very first launch from
Porterville. This site, just north of Cape Town, offers the unusual combination
of thermic cross-country flying and an easy foot launch, so it's also a great
place for experienced pilots who want to break a few personal records. Another
fantastic location is Table Mountain-one of the great flying sites of the
world-but with its tricky cliff launch and treacherous winds, it's only for
very experienced pilots.
8. Abseil off
Table Mountain When rock climbers have reached the top of a
climb, the quickest way down is to abseil-which is pretty much why this
technique was developed. But there are a number of dedicated abseiling sites in
South Africa, so you don't have to claw your way up a sheer cliff by your
fingernails to earn the thrill of abseiling off. Probably the most spectacular
option is Table Mountain. The actual abseil itself is only about 100m, but you
hang out roughly a kilometre above the city. If you don't have a head for
heights, you'll find this pretty stressful, but the views are awesome. Other
scenic options include the Steenbras River Gorge, the Stormsriver Gorge and
Knysna Heads. Wearing a climbing harness, clipped onto a securely attached
rope, you simply walk backwards down the cliff, controlling your descent down
the rope. Once you reach an overhang, you lose contact with Mother Earth, but
if abseiling sounds a bit tame, you could try rap jumping. The principle's the
same, only the rope is attached to the back of the harness so you get to run
down the cliff facing the ground. You can do this at Knysna Heads and there are
a few urban adventure companies offering rap jumping down buildings.
9. Get Attitude at
Altitude Ever noticed how everything looks different from the
air? Well, try upside down. Squeeze yourself into the passenger seat of a Pitts
Special, a Harvard Trainer or a historic Tiger Moth, and get ready for the ride
of your life. After a quick climb, you'll have a few minutes to enjoy the view
before your universe starts going off kilter. Steel yourself as you dive into a
loop and then look towards the wing as you stay still and the world turns
through 360¡. Then try a roll, hang suspended vertically or fly upside
down. You'll never look at the world the same way again. If money is no object
and you really do believe in the adage "go too fast, fly too high", you could
take advantage of the fact that South Africa is one of the few places in the
world where you can fly in an ex-military supersonic jet. You could skim just
on the conservative side of the sound barrier in a Hawker Hunter or a
Buccaneer, trying a few high speed combat manoeuvres such as rolls, stall turns
and loops, perhaps even flying in formation. Or make like James Bond in a L39
Albatross (as featured in Tomorrow Never Dies). But while you're about it, you
may as well try the full supersonic bit. Yes, that means flying faster than
1100km/h. Eat your heart out, Chuck Yeager.
10. Follow the Feeding Frenzy You've dived every coral
reef around, explored kelp forests and swum with whale sharks, dolphins and
rays-even dived under ice and in caves. You've done it all, right? Not quite.
It's only in the last few years that local enthusiasts have started diving
what's rapidly becoming known as "the greatest shoal on earth". Around July,
billions of sardines make their way up the east coast of South Africa,
accompanied by huge pods of Common and Bottlenose dolphins, small groups of
Cape fur seals, schools of Copper and other sharks, large game fish and
enormous flocks of Cape gannets, shearwaters, albatrosses and gulls. Once the
shoal reaches the Wild Coast off the Eastern Cape it veers inshore and stays
pretty close to the beach all the way to Durban. It's not an easy dive-you
could spend days at sea and see almost nothing, but if you consistently go out
for about a week, you might strike it lucky. The Common dolphins habitually
herd the smaller fish into a tight bunch called a "baitball" and circle to keep
the captive lunch intact. Other opportunists joining in the feast may include a
few sharks, seals or dive-bombing gannets. It's a real feeding frenzy, but you
should stay just outside the food chain (hopefully). If you'd like to dive in
South Africa but this sounds too hard core, don't worry, there are hundreds of
dive sites, ranging from warm, shallow coral reefs to-well-the sardine run.
