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Feb 2002
Article: Get High On Holiday Publication: You Magazine Canopy Tour: Tsitsikamma You're a stranger in a secret world where snakes slither silently by, porcupines and scorpions rustle in the shadows and flitting birds loudly announce their presence… |
You're a stranger in a secret world where snakes slither silently by, porcupines and scorpions rustle in the shadows and flitting birds loudly announce their presence…
I glide through the trees in the heart of the Tsitsikamma Forest like a baboon, several stories above the giant ferns far below. It's an extraordinary experience, something so awesome you'll always remember it. Definitely a story to tell the grandchildren…
We walk to the first of eight "stations" - actually heavenly thrones in specially chosen centuries-old trees. Compared with what lies ahead - when we'll be a dizzying 40m above the ground - the beginning of the trip is easy.
We start by acclimatizing about 20m above the ground in the middle of a forest so overwhelming it makes you feel like Red Riding Hood - in danger of getting lost among the giants were it not for someone planning this airborne route of over one kilometer. I stand ready in a harness loaded with cables and locks that look as though they can handle anything. You're also wearing a safety helmet. No, it's not in case we fall, Gavin the guide says reassuringly. It's just in case we bash our heads against a tree or something. "You're 100 per cent safe," he repeats as he attaches a rope to a steel cable. "We're standing on a hard-pear tree. You'll glide about 20m past those trees to the next station over there on that Outeniqua yellowwood." Gavin clips two more ropes to the cable while I look down. Now it's a question of trust as I swing between the trees for the first time. If only they knew how fast my heart was beating! It's now or never. My feet leave the steps of the station - and suddenly I'm flying into the dark silence …
It's unbelievable! Ten or so trees deeper into the forest I land at station two, already at a height of 40m. Sitting in a tree is very different from walking. Something about the vibration, the whispering sound - it's just different. Secretly I wish everyone would disappear and I could spend the entire day here with a book, meditating in this tiny nest, hidden among the tops of trees more than 500 years old.
Gavin, who's up here with me, points out the special rubber cushions used to build the cable system. "No tree has been drilled into," he says about the system now employed for the first time in Africa. It took 14 months to complete and he's one of 15 locals trained to operate the service.
"I'm crazy about my job," he says, picking and breaking a leaf to show me the liquid inside. "It's poisonous. The Bushmen mix it with snake venom and dip their arrows in it for hunting."
His colleague Werner is preparing for the next glide. He goes first every time, just in case there's a snake or some other creepy crawly in the way. Next up is Heidi Jansen, our photographer, whose looks belie her courage - unlike me, who's next in line.
If I could only stay a little longer …. It's not easy leaving the sense of security of the enormously high tree. When you let go there's nothing more heavenly than gliding through the air. Uh oh! There's a tree that looks as if it's in the way. Now I understand why I had to put on thick suede gloves. In a panic I grab the cable to brake, forgetting I'm supposed to brake gradually. My arm muscles take the strain. We make it. Everyone reaches the next station without casualties.
Werner and Gavin glide through the air as if it were their natural environment. Each time we're clipped like dogs on a leash to the tree's cable, just to make sure none of us falls off. Gavin takes off his safety helmet and drops it accidentally. In less than a moment Werner's tossed down a rope and abseiled to fetch it. "If anyone doesn't want to finish the route that's how we get them down," Gavin explains. Seconds later Werner's back on the platform with the safety helmet in his hand. "We learnt it on the training course, "says Gavin.
Heidi and I are a little nervous we'll need the loo before the three-hour trip's over. The rope down isn't an option, we realize because climbing up is a lot harder than it looks. So is following Werner to platform three but they tell us a group of disabled people managed it easily. So did kids over the age of seven. We land on another hard-pear tree, a little less high in the sky. The leaves smell like almonds but apparently contain a kind of arsenic that Werner says makes it "as dangerous as a woman- pretty but deadly". We cross a hanging bridge to station four. The longest glide - 8-m - lies ahead ...
I hold my breath every time before I leave the platform and every time it's both wonderful and awesome. You swing so high! A fall means death but you know that isn't going to happen. There's another tree to avoid, then a short span that doesn't require braking. But then - oh no! - I'm handing dead still at the end of a rope high in the forest with only the loeries for company. Then I register: it's a pulley. A few hard tugs and Werner's pulling me onto station five.
The second-last glide is one of the fastest but by this time Heidi and I are old hands who love the speed and can brake with ease when we want to check out the scenery. We're disappointed when the last glide to station eight arrives and it feels strange to be on foot again.
We leave with a new perspective - and the belief we could be wood nymph if we wanted to.
