"If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?"
YES!
A spur-of-the-moment decision: "Okay, I'll tag along with you guys to Stormsriver!"
Two of my friends were buying bus tickets for a trip to Stormsriver, which is on the eastern side of South Africa. I wasn't planning on doing anything particular for the week we have free before classes start (on Friday). And after some hesitation, I decided to tag along. I don't usually do things like this, I like to know everything and plan everything beforehand. But, this is Africa, and plans just do not work.
So, we book a bus ticket to Stormsriver. We leave at 6:45PM on Saturday, we arrive at 4:30AM Sunday. We get picked up by our hostel driver - a big dude in a pink sarong... (who's also "mysteriously" happy at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning).
We sleep a bit in the hostel.
We wake up at 9AM. We are driven to the Bloukrans River Bridge, where the world's highest bungy jump is. It's actually a bridge that goes over a deep valley, and the fall from the bungy point in the center of the bridge to the bottom is 216m. I heard someone say it's 120 floor building, maybe not.
So I'm there, to jump or not to jump. Well I'm here, I might as well jump.
We walk over a mesh pathway to the bungy point. I don't know how I did it, but I jumped. I think my body just responded without thinking. "4,3,2,1, bungy!" and ooh, my feet sort of pushed off the platform!
There are mixed responses, but I liked the first free fall part. It was fun! I thought it'd be like going in a rollercoaster ride, but it wasn't! No butterflies in your stomach, just... trees and a black river down below and NOTHING else. It was an amazing feeling, actually. To be completely alone, in almost palpable silence between two huge walls of trees and "nothingness". Gorgeous exerience. Completely alone. It was fun :)
Some people said their head hurt from the blood rushing downwards, but no, I was fine. I liked dangling there waiting for the guy to come pick me up, actually. It was peaceful :)
So that's pretty much day 1.
Day 2: we lounged in the hostel, because the weather was horrible. It was raining all day. In the afternoon, we decided to trek to the Big Tree, a 36m yellowood tree nearby. So we walk along the highway, do a short walk to the tree and take pictures.
And we got drunk for the night.
Day 3: big hike in Tsitsikamma National Park
We get up in the morning, get driven to the Park, where we went on a hike to the waterfall. It's a very peculiar spot, where the waterfall from the mountain meets the waves from the ocean. Cool place. We did have to climb over some sharp-looking rocks to get there, though.
After lounging at the waterfall for a while, we ambitious young people decided to hike up a bit more. So we hiked up some more rocks and muddy paths and steep steps until we ran into a hut, where we took advantage of its toilet facilities, and found out that the middle section of the hike path had been closed. So we walked down the highway for some while, and resumed our hike on the right trail. Hmm, not easy, but good fun. I have not enjoyed nature this much in a long while.
So there it is, my long blurb about my short weekend-and-a-half trip.
Oh, almost forgot. HOT BARTENDERS at the hostel. Whoo!
Pictures, as always, are posted on google. (www.picasaweb.google.com/Choi.HyeIn) I didn't end up taking my camera to a lot of the places, so other people have more pictures. I'll post them up as soon as I can get hands on them.
Love, Hye In :)
YES!
A spur-of-the-moment decision: "Okay, I'll tag along with you guys to Stormsriver!"
Two of my friends were buying bus tickets for a trip to Stormsriver, which is on the eastern side of South Africa. I wasn't planning on doing anything particular for the week we have free before classes start (on Friday). And after some hesitation, I decided to tag along. I don't usually do things like this, I like to know everything and plan everything beforehand. But, this is Africa, and plans just do not work.
So, we book a bus ticket to Stormsriver. We leave at 6:45PM on Saturday, we arrive at 4:30AM Sunday. We get picked up by our hostel driver - a big dude in a pink sarong... (who's also "mysteriously" happy at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning).
We sleep a bit in the hostel.
We wake up at 9AM. We are driven to the Bloukrans River Bridge, where the world's highest bungy jump is. It's actually a bridge that goes over a deep valley, and the fall from the bungy point in the center of the bridge to the bottom is 216m. I heard someone say it's 120 floor building, maybe not.
So I'm there, to jump or not to jump. Well I'm here, I might as well jump.
We walk over a mesh pathway to the bungy point. I don't know how I did it, but I jumped. I think my body just responded without thinking. "4,3,2,1, bungy!" and ooh, my feet sort of pushed off the platform!
There are mixed responses, but I liked the first free fall part. It was fun! I thought it'd be like going in a rollercoaster ride, but it wasn't! No butterflies in your stomach, just... trees and a black river down below and NOTHING else. It was an amazing feeling, actually. To be completely alone, in almost palpable silence between two huge walls of trees and "nothingness". Gorgeous exerience. Completely alone. It was fun :)
Some people said their head hurt from the blood rushing downwards, but no, I was fine. I liked dangling there waiting for the guy to come pick me up, actually. It was peaceful :)
So that's pretty much day 1.
Day 2: we lounged in the hostel, because the weather was horrible. It was raining all day. In the afternoon, we decided to trek to the Big Tree, a 36m yellowood tree nearby. So we walk along the highway, do a short walk to the tree and take pictures.
And we got drunk for the night.
Day 3: big hike in Tsitsikamma National Park
We get up in the morning, get driven to the Park, where we went on a hike to the waterfall. It's a very peculiar spot, where the waterfall from the mountain meets the waves from the ocean. Cool place. We did have to climb over some sharp-looking rocks to get there, though.
After lounging at the waterfall for a while, we ambitious young people decided to hike up a bit more. So we hiked up some more rocks and muddy paths and steep steps until we ran into a hut, where we took advantage of its toilet facilities, and found out that the middle section of the hike path had been closed. So we walked down the highway for some while, and resumed our hike on the right trail. Hmm, not easy, but good fun. I have not enjoyed nature this much in a long while.
So there it is, my long blurb about my short weekend-and-a-half trip.
Oh, almost forgot. HOT BARTENDERS at the hostel. Whoo!
Pictures, as always, are posted on google. (www.picasaweb.google.com/Choi.HyeIn) I didn't end up taking my camera to a lot of the places, so other people have more pictures. I'll post them up as soon as I can get hands on them.
Love, Hye In :)
