5 Am the alarm went off. Normally this is a nasty occurrence, but today this was really bad. For some reason my mobile decided to play a song with birds tweeting and annoying bells ringing. My short term solution of lobbing the thing across the room failed to silence it, in fact it just made it more resilient and started to play even louder. So I got up. It was still dark and I was on a mission to get the worlds greatest photo of the sun coming up over the African plains.
Enthused by the fact that I had got up in time and that I had sacrificed a perfectly good night out fighting with the locals I got in Hen’s car and drove the 20 minutes up to the entrance to the look out spot. A further 20 minute trek up 568 steps through a rain forest by torch light ensued. I was the only person for miles around, this was going to be good. My own African sunrise with no one (most likely fat and American) to ruin it.
As I reached the summit my heart sank. The fog was so thick I could not see further than 10 metres. This was complete waste of time, so I decided to waste some more by just sitting there taking pictures of clouds until it dawned on me that this was ridiculous and left.
I Drove back to the hotel and checked out before heading to a pancake house for breakfast. Not a bad consultation prize. As I sat reading a particularly unhelpful and disinteresting tourist book – ever wanted to see a working silk farm before? Nope me either. Then something jumped out at me. “The Big Swing is OPEN! Adventure-seeking tourists can test their bravery against the world’s biggest swing. This monster will see you swing clear across the Graskop Gorge, more than 65m above the ground.” Now we were talking.
I rocked up to the place feeling all cock and confident. This was going to be awesome. This was misguided to be fair as my latest encounter with throwing my self off something high up had not gone well. It was in Mallorca with Cons and Dom. We had swam out to this big rock protruding out of the sea and scaled up it. It was probably about 15 metres high and as I recall full of bird shit. To cut a long story short, I ended up on the top of this thing cacking my self at the top unable to launch myself into certain death whilst two 8 year old girls repeatedly jumped off ran back up and jumped off in between goading me by singing “Macho Man” at me in Spanish much to Constantine and Dom’s amusement. Yes indeed this was not my finest hour. How ever today would be different I decided.
As I approached the cliff edge I could hear the occasional scream as someone plummeted free falling for 2.5 seconds reaching 160 km/h then swinging at incredible speed across the gorge. The setting was undeniably beautiful, the gorge perhaps not more than 100 metres across meandered down onto the plains 2 kms below. But this was only a brief welcome distraction from my impending doom. I thought I’d ease myself into it gently with a zip line slide out across the Canyon. This was no problem one ball crushing double harness later I was zooming 80metres up above trees, I was a bit to enthusiastic on the launch in fact that I made it all the was to the terrace of a bar on the other side where I almost got close enough to swipe this guys beer much to the amusement of the crowd, but unfortunately I was yanked back before I could complete my dare devil heist.
Back on the cliff it was time for business.
“Any last requests” one of the staff asked?
“Yeah, a beer…and a clean pair of shorts” I replied before gulping my nerves down. I could joke all I liked, but there was no getting away from the fact that II was absolutely shitting myself. I really fucking hate heights. As I approached the launch point this little voice in my head was just saying “now why do you want to go throw yourself of this perfectly good solid platform eh?”
“So forwards or backwards?” a guy in a harness asked.
“Oh forwards please!” But I soon changed my mind as soon as I looked over the cliff. No way. Backwards it was.
“Ok Just put your feet there on the markers” My feet shuffled backwards by about a centimetre well short of the foot I needed to get into position. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to go there, they just had their own ideas. As if to say “fuck off. Throw yourself off brain, we are staying here.”
It was about the point when 2 small Spanish girls turned up and started singing Matcho Man that I just leant back and fell off.

FUCKKKKKK! It was the strangest sensation! I remember initially thinking “shit I’m about to die” As the adrenaline shot in to my blood stream. My arms just flapped and my stomach went through my ears. Then as the ledge got smaller I noticed the cliff sailing passed. “Wow, what a pretty water fall!” I thought just as there was a boiing! And the rope caught the slack sending me hurtling across the gorge with shit loads of G force and an almighty Woo Hoo! Yes! YES! I’m ALIIIIIIVVVVE! Then I just dangled there.

After my close scrape with castration by harness I decided it was time for a beer so I went to the bar with my new found friends (other jumpers consisting of 2 South African Couples who I met at the bottom, they were all to happy to get into a conversation as I think they were just glad to be alive after that experience. I also met an Africcans policeman who was there with his wife (who strangely had the highest pitched voice in the world). He had spent 20 years in the police force in Johannesburg – very brave if you ask me. He told me a story about how he was order to give a demonstration to some new recruits on abseiling down a building. However unknown to his superiors he had only ever done it once and did not have a clue what he was doing. He managed to flip himself upside down somewhere near the top. He then had to scale down a 100 metre building upside down whilst browning his trousers! Although to his credit he did it, but there is now a generation of elite crime fighters in Joberg who enter the crime scene upside down.

After spending a few hours enjoying the view punctuated by the occasional scream I decided it was time to move on and check out some of the other sights in the Area. Several waterfalls and look out points did not disappoint. This whole area was dramatic and stunning, driving along these ridiculously long open roads with no traffic in sight. I was sip on the occasional cold beer and check to my left the sheer cliff drop into the Lowveld below. This was living.
Late in the afternoon after I had exhausted the local attractions I decided to head back to Hippopools – I had a 280Km Drive to do so I set off at 4. Along the way I stopped off at “The Rondavels” this was yet another look out point. A feast for the eyes. Too much of a view to take in. You could see three great monoliths made from a reddish stone standing up next to each other about 3000 metres high. They were set in this basin with a green blue lagoon at the bottom and the lowveld spanning out as far as the eye could see off into the distance. This was incredibly beautiful.