Oh what a glorious day! The Garden Route is known as South Africa’s Destination Adventure and with good reason. Visitors can swim with seals, cage dive with sharks, skydive, paraglide, blackwater tube, bungy jump and zipline their way across the Garden Route feet barely touching the ground ;)
Just kidding. However, using Plettenberg Bay as a base from which to explore the national parks and natural wonders of the region makes a lot of sense. To the east, are the Tsitsikamma and Nature’s Valley sections of the Garden Route National Park with, not one but two, ziplining adventures, four if you count the zipline including in African”s kloofing experience and the zipline onto Face Adrenalin’s Bloukrans Bridge. And, to the west are the Harkerville, Wilderness and Knysna sections of the national park. Beauty and adventure on all sides. Not sure which zipline to choose? Check out a quick summary of each below.
Harkerville Zipline
The zipline at Harkerville is the latest adventure offering from South African National Parks. This epic zipline is right on the edge of the ocean offering incredible views and a thrilling, salty-breeze zipline. The entire experience includes four ziplines, totaling 2.2km, over a beautiful gorge 200m from the forest floor and the longest zipline is 200m. If you haven’t yet tried it, don’t delay, it’s very popular!
Tsitsikamma Canopy Tours
The iconic Tsitsikamma Canopy Tours in the Tsitsikamma section of the National Park are is the OG zipline in these forests. Started in 2001, Tsitsikamma Canopy Tours has been providing a forest-flying experience for almost 20 years. The Afromontane rain forest of Tsitsikamma is home to 116 different species of giant tree, including the 800-year-old Big Tree and it is through these forests that you’ll fly like a bird from platform to platform. You’ll visit eleven platforms, ride ten ziplines and fly 30m above the forest floor. This is not to be missed.
Africanyon kloofing
Ziplining is just a part of this epic Plett adventure that traverses an ancient canyon in the The Crags on the edge of the national park. For those unfamiliar, kloofing or canyoning is the activity whereby adventurers traverse a river canyon or gorge by swimming, climbing, jumping, abseiling and ziplining. It’s a day packed with fun in exquisite natural surrounding and is highly recommended, especially in summer.
Tsitsikamma Falls Adventures
Tsitsikamma is known for its many waterfalls and mountain streams and Tsitsikamma Falls Adventures makes full use of this fresh, thundering mountain water with a series of ziplines across a gorge and its resident waterfalls. Adventurers can enjoy eight long ziplines, criss-crossing the gorge and waterfalls, the longest at 210m. There’s also a thrilling new 500m triple zipline with the longest slide at a whopping 500m. If it’s been raining, as it often does in Tsitsikamma, the waterfalls are incredible so don’t miss a post-storm zipline over the falls.
Bloukrans Bridge zipline
Face Adrenalin’s Bloukrans Bungy is the standard against which all adventure and adrenaline activities are measured. It is the world’s highest commercial bungy jump at a terrifying, and thrilling, 216m above the ground. Many an adventurer has set their sights on the bungy, only to quiver and shake simply driving over this behemoth of a bridge. Now, jumper have the opportunity to zipline out onto the bridge before their jump further upping the envy factor for adrenaline activities all across the world.
So, where will you be flying on the Garden Route?