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Getting your kicks on the Garden Route
The Garden Route is not the type of destination you want to visit for one weekend only. Careering along the N2, one tends to miss out on the magnificent scenery, fresh air and pristine beaches. But this long weekend, things are going to be radically different. No more lazing in a deck chair and reading that James Clavell novel you've been threatening to finish for six months now. And no more calming walks or bird watching either. This time, you're taking things to the extreme. The friendly town of Mossel Bay serves as an excellent gateway to the Garden Route, with a plethora of extreme sport and eco adventure activities on offer within close vicinity of the town. You're booked into a hotel, but that's going to be your only comfort zone for the duration of your stay!
Take it to the bridge
Your very first port of call is going to be the Gouritz River Bridge, situated on the N2, some 35 kilometres west of Mossel Bay. No one mentions it en route from Cape Town, but everyone is thinking about it. And none of you have taken the bungee leap before. You're all nerves when you arrive, but everyone else is playing it cool so you grit your teeth and clench your muscles as the Face Adrenaline bungee operators strap your ankles in and secure the thick, multi-stranded bungee chord. You start wondering whether the strapping is tight enough, and that bacon and egg breakfast and your stomach aren't treating one another nicely. At all.
Yet the guys doing the strapping seem quite confident that you'll survive. To date, Face Adrenaline has had a 100% safe track record, but one can't help but wonder about first times for everything! And then, all of a sudden, it's just you and the countdown and a stretch of river and sand impossibly far down.
And then absolute silence as you stop breathing and hurtle like a stone towards mother earth. Your adrenaline surges. It feels like an eternity before the slack on your bungee chord disappears and your 65-metre freefall flight starts slowing down. Your field of vision jerk-zooms out, and back in again, and then you hear the cheering from above. "It's a rush and a half man,” you tell a couple still queuing, but it's something that defies any attempt at description. They say the second time is even scarier, as you know what's coming! You conclude that you won't be that keen any time soon, yet you find yourself convincing everyone you know to take the bungee challenge. There is of course also the option of tandem jumps and bridge swings, but these will have to wait for another time.
Show us your teeth
Shark cage diving, since its commercial inception about a decade ago, has been surrounded by quite a bit of controversy. Seeing as the initial alarmist theories seem to have been vastly exaggerated, you all agree that a face-to-face meeting with Jaws is the way forward for a Saturday afternoon. You've just about calmed down since the morning's hair-raising bungee experience, and after a few jeers and jabs, you make the call. Shark Africa are the people to talk to, and you book the dive.
The water temperatures of the Indian Ocean make a wetsuit unnecessary in summer, and you slip into the cage wearing only your costume, a mask and a snorkel. It's a deep, eerie landscape beneath the surface. Through the twilight, you notice a grey tail whipping and a 2.5-metre shark swims right up to your cage at a frightful pace. You feel very exposed and swallow a mouthful of water as you stare at the shark, mesmerised. Seemingly effortlessly, it veers to the left.
Within minutes there are 5 sharks circling the boat, keeping a close look on you with their beady eyes. Above you, on deck, cameras are flashing non-stop as the sharks patrol the surface. By the time you're off the boat, a beer is sounding good.
Black water what?
By now, everyone has warmed to the idea of being an extreme sport junkie, and the debate is heating up as to what challenge to take on next. An excellent plan is of course the black water tubing at the Storms River. It's not nearly as risqué as your previous two activities, but a thrilling ride nonetheless.
Arriving at the Storms River Adventure Village, you're kitted out with customised rubber tubes, wetsuits and helmets, and given your third indemnity form for the day. "Live on the edge", you think as you adjust your helmet's fit. Then it's onto a truck for a quick drive to the top end of the Storms River ravine.
Featuring a fairly sharply dropping walk to the launching area, some boulder hopping and frequent rapids, this is an awesome outing. It also gives one the opportunity to see some of the least accessible, yet most awe-inspiring scenery in the whole of South Africa.
Free Willy and Co.
On a rather more sedate note, you can also opt for boat-based whale watching in Mossel Bay. While the slick black and white Orca whales do not visit our coast, the Southern Rights more than make up for it! Witnessing a whale breaching (jumping out of the water in an arching movement) up close makes this excursion more than worth the while.
By law, one is not allowed to bother these graceful giants, and a clearance distance of 300 metres is prescribed. Fairly frequently, however, they will surface very close to the boat, rewarding the humans with a closer look that is larger than life! Attempting to cram all the sights and heart-racing thrills into a weekend will see one on the run from sunrise to sunset without any respite - yet you try anyway! But as many extreme sports fanatics will attest, one trip is simply not enough.
There's still the abseiling at the Knysna Heads, hot air ballooning near Oudtshoorn, mountain biking at Hakerville and countless more exciting options! As such, the Garden Route has become renowned as an extreme sports and outdoor Mecca. So the next time you hit the Garden Route, take time out to take on the extreme (and not so extreme) in one of the most beautiful regions in the world. But whatever activities you choose, make sure you do the things you can tell your grandchildren about one day.
As they say, you only live once!
