Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Down is the new up here
Bloukrans bungy jump is an experience like no other
cue their kids. This time, however, the gently percolating gut-curdle was self-induced, and having the opposite effect. The mildly pervasive terror that seeped through my veins was slow poison. Hobbled by it, I couldn’t have run if I tried. The choke had been left on. The motor was flooded, awash in adrenaline.
I recalled standing at the counter of Face Adrenaline an hour before to throw myself off a bridge 275 metres above the Bloukrans River that snakes through the forests of Tsitsikamma.
The original plan had been to merely watch my son Tyler jump for his 19th birthday present. Then my wife Janet kindly suggested I took a hike and jumped off the bridge. My birthday was a week away, she said.
No thanks, I said firmly, but thanks for thinking of me.
Now I was wading in slow motion, walking in gulps along an endless rickety tunnel made of wire mesh stretched taut to steel ribs bolted beneath a concrete overhang as each footstep sank into the mesh to heighten a sense of dangling in a vast abyss.
They had warned us not to look down as we worked our way out to the middle of the Bloukrans Bridge. That dizzying sight could send you over the edge … or not, in this case. You might chicken out of your jump, and become the 1 in 5 stat who allegedly abort their mission (no-one in our group of 20 did).
So I didn’t look down. But it was hard. The bridge spans the gorge for 451m from edge to edge. For 225m, you have to suppress your instinct to look where you walk. I stumbled frequently because my focus was fused to the concrete above my head.
I had driven over the bridge on the N2 many times in the last decade without knowing about that wire tunnel. Neither did I know what lay beneath the bridge at the zenith of its span. I had little interest in ever doing the bungee. What for? I would think.
As you near the end of your long walk to fear-dom, you hear the doof doof doof of music. Now I knew what lay under the bridge. There is a full-on DJ in a glass box belting out the beats. There are T- shirted staffers in red bustling about, busy in their quest to distract you from what you’re about to do.
There is something quite persuasive about two burly guys gently wrestling you to the edge of the chasm. You don’t feel the need to question their firm instruction to “3. 2. 1. Bungeee!”
After not looking down, you look down as you drop like a stone. You look down a lot. You overdose on down. Down is the new up.
I won’t forget the rapid transition from chaos and house music and chatter and vibe to a vast whistling silence. My screams were muffled, like a distant commentator warning me about something.
I will never forget that warp speed blast of emptiness that shoots through you like an electric shock, followed by the twisting slow-mo procession of green trees, Coca-cola water and granite. Colours are richer, senses heightened to sweet distraction.
You feel intensely solitary as the bottom of the ravine careens rapidly towards you. Then it recedes. Then it comes back at you. The earth is breathing. Your soul soars. You’re flying.
The world’s biggest bridge bungy was never on the bucket list.
It is now, and ticked.
Rollin Rollin
This year's RVCA Rolling Retro takes place at Llandudno on Saturday, February 22. This fun specialty surfing event harps back to the good old days of early surf culture, when men wore tight shorts and unseemly facial hair and women wore bikinis with polka dots and beehive hairdos.
Weather Tip
Solid 6-10’ swell arrives today in light going moderate southerly. Muizenberg looks 2-4’ in mild onshore bump. Surf early. Tomorrow a 4-5’ swell runs early in light S going strong SSE, with a potent long period swell arriving to 10’ after 4pm. Muizenberg goes messy.