Oh Zambezi!

Today I took my love for the Zambezi one step further... ...but I'm ashamed to say I was such a chicken at the top, I even thought, "I don't think I can do this."

The moment I'd left the platform I was grinning from ear to ear, I was flying with the wind in my face and the beautiful wonderful river beneath me. It felt amazing.

A few photos, from the beginning:

Nothing can come closer to feeling like flying than that did. It was blissful. Even the repeat bounces were fun. Of course I'd be even happier if I'd not been so scared - a bit disappointed in myself there. I think my biggest fear was of being scared! But wow. It was good, so good. There was no fear as I flew, just flight.

And as it happened, there was a good deal on, where it only cost an extra ten dollars to do a "swing". Swinging doesn't sound so bad, but look at the swing:

It's from the same platform as the bungee, which you can see on the bridge picture - or maybe not, as I've reduced the picture sizes somewhat brutally. Anyway, the jumping platform is on top of the bridge, halfway across. Click on the pictures for a larger view.

The swing involved running off the platform, plummeting earthwards (no sensation of flying this time) until the rope takes your weight and you swing. The rope is anchored to a cable across the river, some 20 or 30 metres from the bridge and also rather lower, allowing, we reckoned, at least 75m of graceless freefall. The swinging was very pleasant too, and gave a very good view of not only the gorge but also passing bungee jumpers.

Spot the speck that's me!

Reaching the top of the slow haul upwards after the swing:

Alex is uploading some jumping video onto his blog - so when he's got it up there I'll post a link to his blog so you can get a better impression of what was going on.

Bungee stats: Height: 111 m, 4 seconds of freefall, Max speed 120 kmh

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Oh Zambezi!