FLY OVER MALOLOTJA’S FOREST CANOPY

The Malolotja National Park has an interesting option for adventure-hungry visitors to enjoy this beautiful park: a three-hour-long canopy tour.

A canopy tour, sometimes called a zipline, works almost like those old foefie slides. A series of cables is fastened at a downward angle along a set of platforms or stops to create a tour through the air over something like a forest or ravine. People who want to do the tour then get a sturdy harness that ties around the waist. The harness has a rope and a strong carabiner (the same kind of shackle used in mountaineering) that clips to the cables. You then slide down the cable from platform to platform, high about the world below you. To brake, you just grip the cable with thick gloves and the friction slows you down.

Malolotja’s canopy tour runs high above the Sihlotswane ravine over the forest canopy of Swaziland’s last mountain forest. You glide down 10 lines and stop on 11 platforms along the way, from where you can take in the natural beauty from a totally new vantage point.

There are many similar canopy tours across South Africa, but what makes Malolotja’s special is the fact that almost all of the platforms have been mounted against the sheer cliff walls of the ravine. It’s an unforgettable experience to glide from one of these platforms to the next while you enjoy the park from the air, and then perch like a bird of prey against the cliffs as you peer into the forest below.

The canopy tour includes a drive in an open game-viewing vehicle as well as a light lunch. It’s a lot of fun and suitable for almost all ages (as long as you don’t suffer from a fear of heights).