Zip lining

Tsitsikamma Canopy Tour – Tsisikamma, Stormsriver, South Africa 2013

Ziplining — Flying Through the Trees

Today, ziplining is mainly associated with adventure and fun, but its origins were far more practical. Simple cables and pulleys were once used to cross rivers, ravines and other difficult terrain. Gravity did the work — carrying people or goods from one side to the other. Somewhere along the way, somebody must have thought: Why not do this just for fun?Hélène and I discovered the answer during our journey through South Africa in 2013.

Tsitsikamma — South Africa, 2013
During our travels along the Garden Route, we stayed at a B&B in Storms River, in the heart of Tsitsikamma. Surrounded by ancient indigenous forest and the foothills of the Tsitsikamma Mountains, it was the perfect setting for our first canopy tour. Storms River has an atmosphere all its own. Dense forest surrounds the little village, a reminder of a much older landscape once crossed by elephants and inhabited by San hunter-gatherers long before roads, villages and tourists appeared. And somewhere high among those enormous trees, we were about to go flying.

Our route took us from platform to platform through the forest canopy, suspended high above the ground. After the first slightly apprehensive step into empty space, hesitation quickly disappeared.The cable began to sing, the trees rushed past and suddenly we understood the attraction. We loved it.

There is something wonderfully liberating about leaving a platform, trusting the equipment and simply allowing gravity to carry you through the forest. South Africa had introduced us to ziplining.A few years later, Hawaii would take it to another level.

Flying over Maui — Hawaii, 2016|
In April 2016, Hélène and I returned to Hawaii for four weeks of island hopping, visiting Maui, Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii. On Maui we decided to go ziplining again — this time high above the landscape of West Maui. Our adventure began with a ride into the mountains, followed by a 360-foot suspension bridge across the valley. Beyond it waited a series of seven ziplines through a spectacular landscape of forest, deep valleys and distant views towards the Pacific.And then came the big one. One of the lines stretched for more than 2,000 feet. Standing on the platform and looking across that enormous open space, there is always that brief moment when your brain asks a perfectly reasonable question:

“Are you sure about this?”

And then you go. Within seconds you are flying high above the valley, suspended from a cable with the tropical landscape rushing beneath you. The sensation is difficult to describe. You know perfectly well that you are attached to a cable — but for a few wonderful moments it really does feel like flying. By the time we reached the other side, there was only one thing we wanted to do: Go again!

Something in Our DNA?
Humans have dreamed of flying for thousands of years. From the earliest myths of people taking to the skies to the Wright brothers and today’s wingsuit flyers, we seem unable to resist the idea of escaping gravity. Perhaps there really is something in our DNA that makes us want to experience the sensation of flight. Unfortunately, evolution still hasn’t provided us with feathers. So until it does, a zipline is a pretty good alternative.

South Africa in 2013, Hawaii in 2016 — two very different landscapes,
one wonderful feeling: flying through the air with Hélène beside me.

Those were the days — and what fun we had!