We planned the trip down toward Kayak & Lilo Adventures in the Tsitsikamma National Park for a couple of weeks, if not months. It was something my then fiance, now wife, had been wanting to do for years now. She is an avid adventurer and her luster for life is unmatched. But the problem is now I have to pickle along with her. This is sometimes a good thing, but like in today's case, it was something that pushed the boundaries of what I do in my life: I jumped from a 10 meter cliff into a river. This is not something I usually do. Even though I have video footage of the event, I think I am going to keep that part for myself; I did not have a graceful fall.

Either way, please join me as I take you on this mostly video journey! Sadly, I could not take my camera with me, for obvious reasons. But my wife had a pouch for our iPhones, so most of the post will be videos we took with our phones. I hope that this will convey the beauty of what we experienced.

Hiking Toward the Base

Sadly, we could not take the long route from the harbour as the ocean was acting up a little bit. So, we needed to hike for about 10 minutes to the mouth of the river.

As we hiked, we caught a little view of the beach:

But soon, we were at our base where we deployed out kayaks into the calm waters of the Stormsrivier river.

Land in the Calm Waters

As you descend down into the waters, you are instructed to familiarise yourself with the environment and the kayaking. This was fun, as we were the first to go in, so we waited for the rather big group.

This is not the best photograph, we were kayaking, but here is the famous Stormsriver bridge. Many a Hiver have written about this bridge! I think there are about 4 posts about this place. It is a rather famous one!

The Start of the Adventures

Then we actually started. It was beautiful to say the least. It was calm, quiet, and just perfect in all aspects really. It was good for the soul.

Here you can actually feel the calm and peace; it is really almost tangible:

As we kayaked deeper into the river, we landed upon a rather big cave. You are allowed to kayak in the cave, and there we head the calls of hundreds if not thousands of bats. In some sense, it is a bit scary, but on the other hand it was quite surreal and beautiful. It is not something you experience that often.

Then You Get Out of the Kayak

After kayaking to the end of the river stretch, you get out of the kayak. You climb over some rather big boulders to go deeper into the river bed, but here you give up the safety of the kayak and get on some lilos. You literally paddle up the river.

And this is also where you are given the option to jump from a cliff that is about 10 meters high. My then fiance challenged me, telling me to jump. How could I not? I have a fear of heights, so even just writing this sentence makes my palms sweat. Did it make me a stronger person? I would not say so. It was not the best feeling to know I was falling. But I did it.

The Calm Singing of the Tour Guides

When we headed back, after risking our lives on the jump, our tour guides sang some songs and whistled for our entertainment, almost like we did not jump from such heights. Funny thing, the tour guided himself did not want to jump! But in the end, we survived!

And then we saw the ocean on the horizon in the small slit of the mountain. We knew the journey was done, ending with yet another beautiful view. If anything, we had just some of the most spectacular views.

Alas, the Journey is Renewed Every Time

The journey in that kayak ended, but our bigger journey was continued and renewed at each instance. It was a beautiful one, and one for the books.

I hope that you enjoyed this more video-based journey with me. Even though we did not have a lot of opportunities to take photographs, the videos speak for themselves.

Happy traveling and keep well.

All of the photographs and videos were taken by our iPhones. The musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by this beauty.