Flamingo - Sport & Adventure - Laughing in the face of death
Officially, zip-lines consist of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline. They are designed to enable a user, propelled by gravity, to traverse from the top to the bottom of the inclined cable, usually made of stainless steel, by holding on or attaching to the freely moving pulley.
A 550-metre-long zip-line in the hills of Windhoek promises pure joy, big excitement and grand adventure.
It came down to this. If I was going to laugh in the face of death, if I was going to boast of an ultimate thrill, if I was going to put my faith in human ingenuity, I was going to have to trust a few centimetres of steel.
I had signed up to test my courage. A few weeks ago, a colleague offered tales of weekend excitement. “Strap on a harness, hook yourself to a wire and then throw yourself off one of the highest hills in the Khomas Region,” she said. The promise of pure joy, big excitement and grand adventure caught my attention.
Two Saturdays later, I joined a family of six and a birthday party of 20-somethings at a farmer’s gate on the fringes of Windhoek’s Klein Kuppe neighbourhood. A rumbling engine approached from a distance, and once it arrived, we climbed onto an old army bakkie and headed down a rocky trail. After weaving our way up a steep track, we arrived at a large platform on top of a mini-mountain. Marvelling at the spectacular 360-degree vista, I met Bryen, who had worked on the hillside since the zip-line opened earlier this year.
“At first you’ll be sceptical and think you’re going to die,” he chuckled. “But then you go, and you love it.”
He told me about the journey that criss-crossed in between two mountains, a mere 13 stories high. We would be reaching speeds of up to 55 kilometres per hour and would be strung up, flying in a space no human could naturally go, for more than a minute at a time.
But do people die here, I wanted to ask, anxiety starting to build as I realised what I was about to do. Do they always make it to the other side?
Minutes later, owner Richard Hoff appeared and offered a drink from the bar. Was this for the nerves? I wondered.
Interested in setting up a zip-line for several years, Richard said he had been inspired by zip-line operations across the world. In Africa, several are strung across popular tourist destinations. South Africa boasts the fastest, longest and tallest zip-line in the world. Richard’s zip-line was the second in Namibia, and the first in the Windhoek region.
Meanwhile, my moment of truth was approaching. The family and the birthday-party crew marched to the launching pad. There, a box of harnesses, clips and pulleys appeared. My hands began to sweat.
“This is not idiot-proof, you can get injured,” Richard warned, already suited up in the harness and hooked onto the wire. Then he ran, leapt and was whisked away. Others began pulling on harnesses, laughing lightly at the upcoming ride. The next volunteer was now strapped firmly into her body harness and hooked onto the wire. With gentle urging, she hurtled herself along the steel cable that stretched 550 metres from one hill to the next. My stomach jumped, a bead of sweat fell from my brow. Soon, we saw her on a second, adjacent wire, a little further downhill, whooping with glee.
She returned with reports that the experience was “Baie lekker” and “mooi mooi”. Thereafter, a grandmother, a grandfather, a 14-year-old girl and a young mother lined up, ready to test excitement. As they sailed along the wire, they laughed and sang out with joy.
Finally, it was my turn. With the safety harness cinched tightly around my waist and chest, Bryen tightened a series of clips, hooked the pulley onto the wire, and attached me to it. This was it. If I died, at least…
“You’ve got to take a running start,” Bryen said, interrupting my thoughts of imminent death. And then the rational part of my brain turned off. I screwed my eyes tight, felt my legs churning and then suddenly, boom, I was weightless. I opened my eyes. I was flying; floating above thorny trees, a deep valley and a rocky hillside. This is what it must be like to be a bird soaring, I thought, as I swooped along the wire, landing on a platform on the other side. It was incredible.
“This is awesome,” I told Richard, who was manning the platform on the other side.
He laughed knowingly, then hooked me onto the second wire, sending me across the same valley until I arrived at another platform, further down the hill I’d started on.
My adrenalin rush continued as I walked back to the platform where we’d been served our drink. I had laughed at death, conquered an ultimate thrill and loved it.
Be Local Tourism launched its first zip-line course in March 2009. Riders will travel half a kilometre in each direction and can reach speeds exceeding 50 kilometres per hour. At its highest point riders will be over 130 metres above the valley floor. Tours run daily. Dinner and beverages are available. For further information: nht@mac.com.na
