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IT'S LIKE TARZAN - But safe & on Pulleys

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South Africa » Travel Reviews » Canopy Tour Review
Submitted by: MJ, 18 August, 2007
Pretoria, South Africa
It’s like Tarzan! But Safe and on Pulleys! Flinging myself through the Tsistikamma Canopy system has probably been one of the most fun things I have ever done. The Tsistikamma Canopy Tour starts with a very detailed safety instruction session. After that we got “kitted up.” “Kitting up” is where you get outfitted with a full body harness, a pulley and climbing equipment. Each person in your “expedition” is outfitted with these things and then the equipment is checked over by the guides. This trip isn’t for the faint of heart. You start out suspended thirty meters above the ground! The entire adventure takes place high up in the trees!

See, what happens is that you start out on the “launch platform” and then you use your pulley to glide along a steel cable to another tree platform. And then once your group has all made it to the first tree platform, you continue on to the next platform. Two guides go with every group. One to lead the group and one to follow to make sure everyone makes it safely to each platform.

The platforms are built in Outeniqua Yellowwoods, but the trees haven’t been harmed by the addition of these platforms which have been added high up in their branches. No nails are used in this endeavor. The engineer who designed it didn’t want to damage the surrounding vegetation in any way, so other methods have been used-methods too genius for this not-a-math-or-engineering-person to explain.

The entire canopy tour consists of eight platforms and nine “fufi” slides. The longest slide is over eighty meters! That is a long way to travel by way of pulley and steel cable! It takes about three hours to do the entire canopy but it is incredibly worth it. I won’t lie, it was freaky to step off of each and every one of those platforms and it took me a while to get the hang of the brake system (aka my hands).

The key is to let yourself relax. I had to force myself to relax on the first cable because I knew that if I let my hands get tense then I’d end up somehow coming to a complete stop before I was halfway to the next platform. Hanging, velocity-less, thirty meters up is not my idea of a good time. So I made myself relax and even though my stomach hit the floor each time I stepped off the platform, it rose quickly and by the end of each ride was not only fine, but excited to go again!

I would highly recommend this pulley-systemed-Tarzan-esque adventure for everybody who travels to South Africa!
Click to view the public Flickr.com South African Canopy Tour Slide Show
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South Africa Canopy Tours
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Travel Review - Its Like Tarzan, but safe and on Pulleys - Canopy Tour Tsitsikamma, Garden Route, South Africa / Experience

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