If you want a really exhilarating non-energetic fun thing to do I highly recommend a tree-top canopy tour. All you need are a few hours and a few Rands and 8 zip-lines of thrilling speed are your for the enjoyment.
I was given a tour as a Christmas gift much to my glee and although a little apprehensive about my stomach behaving at such heights I set off on Goodwill Day for one of the best times of my life.
We arrived in light mist which made it all a bit ethereal but nothing stops these tours!
First of all you are taken in for a briefing on how to behave so high up in the trees and importantly to me anyway they tell you how to stop. then with a few butterflies of anticipation fluttering in my stomach we took our turn to get kitted out in a, safety harness with several lines as backup, some gloves for braking, and finally the hard hat in case of branches. We all looked very fetching as we waddled off in line to get in the land rover which was to take us up to the top of the hill.
Well even that was a thrill. The driver knows the trip like the back of his hand and loves to play a bit as he slithers round the u-bends up a slippery bumpy mountainside. Once at the top we follow through the mist to our first platform only a few metres up so as to acclimatise ourselves to the zip-line.
On the shout of “Go!” I was whizzing down the line to some unseen destination desperately brake to check that how they told us to brake would actually work. It did. I went so slowly I had to be pulled in at the end, but it was fun and now I was ready to enjoy it!
The next zip-line I whizzed down and thought I’d never stop as I really couldn’t feel any braking when I tried to brake, however I got there just fine. As I zoomed off down the longest and steepest I peered down through the mist at the trees somewhere way down there. I was so intent on looking, the next thing I knew I was being yelled at to speed up to get up to the finish step – Oops I missed again, but this time by so far I had to turn round and haul myself in hand over hand up the line. Mmm, I didn’t make that mistake again. When they said don’t break I listened and did not break and I made it to the end every time feeling quite the pro by the end.