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Published: October 27th 2006
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Hey everybody, this is Jordan......... We are in Livingstone, Zambia now (central Africa) and we really love this town. We really love Zambia, it will be hard to leave here. There is so much to do and it really feels like we are in Africa.
Wow! Today was great, I did three really great things today. I did the flying fox, the gorge swing and abseiling. I will explain each one; the first one was the abseiling. Abseiling is repelling down a wall attached to a rope. Number two is the flying fox. This is where you are attached with a harness to a rope and the rope is attached to a line going accross the gorge. You run and jump off a 180 foot cliff and you just are flying over the gorge like superman. Number three is the gorge swing. At the gorge swing there is a line going accross the gorge and a rope is attached to the line in the middle. The other end of the rope is attached to you. So you jump off the cliff and free fall 160 feet for four seconds until you get to the end of
the rope, and then you start swinging like a pendulum.
As we drove into Victoria Falls gorge my stomoach dropped. I couldnt beleive I was going to jump off of it! We walked into a room with a sign that said Gorge Swing. At that point I was so excited but soo nervous! They started talking about what we would be doing. First was abseiling, then flying fox and then gorge swing. Then if our stomach's were ok, we would have lunch. After lunch you can do any of them as many times as you want. So we start walking to the abseiling and man oh man was i excited. As i walked up to the 180 foot cliff, they started putting all the gear on us; a harness with a rope attached to it and a helmet and gloves (it was actually quite heavy). Then they start telling us how to go down and what you do is you grab the rope with both hands and slowly let go so you can start going down. As you go down you should push off the wall otherwise you will be hanging in mid air! Which did happen to
me....and i did a 360 and looked down lol not a good combination. When i hit ground i was sooooo happy but only to be awaited by a huge walk in the scolding hot sun just to get back up the gorge. Just to add to my excitement it was 40 deggrees in the gorge. We finally got back up and had a couple of drinks. The walk was worth it though.
After that we got to do the flying fox. This was a great one and there is no walking included lol. As I was running off the platform I was hesitating a little bit but I knew it was safe so I jumped off the cliff! WOW! As I was sailing over this great huge gorge I was thinking "this is only a once in a lifetime experiance". I couldnt beleive I did it! I decided to have another go at it and then i watched some other people go off it. I just relaxed. We started walking to the gorge swing and I wasn't sure about doing it so i just watched others do it for a while and had some drinks and chatted for
a bit. Then I thought I would really regret it if I didnt do it so I just got buckled up and ready got some straps and rope and more rope attached to me. Then we walked over to the platform where you jump off for the swing. It was so high my stomach felt sick. My mom was really nervous because she is terrified of heights. She didn't do any of the activities, she just took pictures and worried. The instructor finally took me to the edge of the platform when I was hooked up to the swing and told me to step off the edge on 3. I looked down (20 stories) and thought omg im gonna die lol. Then he calls 3 2 1 and I jump......HOLY CRIPES! IM FALLING FALLING FALLING! Then i get yanked and flip upside downand im finally swinging like a pendulum. At this point I almost fainted - the getting yanked and flipped upside down is NOT supposed to happen but I eventually did get up sitting right and having fun. I got a video of all of this. Then i have to start walking to the top of the gorge again.
When I got back to the top we had some lunch and drinks and i did the flying fox 3 more times lol. After that we thought we would call it a day. Wow look at me...... I jumped off cliffs the whole day and I got a video and a shirt from that place. It was great fun and I am thinking about trying bungy (just don't tell my mom).
Later Days!
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Damian
non-member comment
Too cool!!
That looks awesome!!! Where is the Heide "flying fox" or was it the Heide "sitting safely on land fox?" LOL