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Face Adrenaline - Bloukrans
Walking out to the jump site. Strapping up. Looking down. Stepping out into space. Maybe the Orlando Towers next.
Bungee jumping has been one of those like ‘gotta do’ things ever since they first started doing it in South Africa off the Gourits River Bridge outside Mossel Bay – beginning back in the 1980s. Pity they don’t allow bungee jumping there anymore, but hey, there are all sorts of other places one can go to these days.
Orlando Towers
I first tried bungee jumping off the Kings Kloof Bridge outside Krugersdorp, Mogale City – a 50 metre drop from the platform. Then it was time to head for the big one: at 216 metres, the bungee jumping platform on the Bloukrans River Bridge between Plettenberg Bay and Tsitsikama Forest on the Garden Route is the highest commercial bungee jumping experience in South Africa and apparently the third-highest in the world after the Macau Tower in China and the Verzasca Dam bungee jumping tower near Locarno in Ticino, Switzerland.
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Bungee Mogale
And now I fancy bungee jumping from somewhere or something really unusual – like the cooling towers of the decommissioned power station in Soweto, Johannesburg. How amazing is that! At 100m, it’s not as high as Bloukrans, but just the thought of bungee jumping between the two Orlando Towers with their incredible vistas of greater Soweto is enough to get my heart beating faster…
It’s something you’ll never, ever forget: the letting go, the heart-stopping free-fall of bungee jumping, the ground rushing up at you, the pull of that giant rubber band as it applies the brakes, so to speak, and then that bouncing sensation… Cool vibes!
