“Where the hell are the brakes on this thing?” That was my first question as I found myself flying through the air 30 metres above the Tsitsikamma forest.

In the spirit of adventure I’d reluctantly agreed to take a break from my beach time while on holiday in Sedgefield to experience the Tsitsikamma canopy tours near Storms River on the Garden Route. 

We were met by an incredibly professional team who talked us through the safety requirements and helped us into our harnesses, before taking us in a 4x4 to the first platform in the heart of the Tsitsikamma forest.

From there we were hooked up to a series of steel cables before flying through the tops of the trees along a series of 10 slides separated by platforms mounted in a series of giant yellowwood trees.

“I wonder if that Tarzan has found a Jane,” my friend Kathy asked as one of our guides, Francois launched himself through the trees at a frightening speed and screaming through the forest as he did so.

I could see that Kathy was already wondering how she managed to let herself get talked into this. 

But before long she was cruising high above the giant ferns and lush vegetation of the Tstitsikamma, loving every moment of it.

Our other guide Marius seemed to have been born in the forest, and on each platform he pointed out birds and rare plants, and explained how to identify each of the trees.

“You see those stains on the floor,” he pointed at the platform we were standing on between the slides. “That’s how we can tell that this is a female Outeniqua Yellowwood. The female trees have small berries which make the stains, and a male would never be so messy.”

Rob and Terry followed the lead of our most adventurous guide, Francois, and were gaining speed on each slide as they became more comfortable with the system. I decided to join them and on one of the faster slides I found my eyes watering as the forest below became a blur.

I was clearly allowing myself to slide along the cable at a ridiculous pace, because the next thing I knew, I’d come to a dead stop and my legs flipped up over my head. Once I’d recovered from my fright I realised that Francois had pulled the emergency break – which was the only thing preventing me from becoming way more intimate with the trunk of a giant female Outeniqua Yellowwood than I would have

After the tour, we were treated to a delicious breakfast while we watched a DVD of our experience. Ashley, who runs the tour, explained to us that the system was built to the highest civil engineering standards, and took about a year to complete. He boasts that the system is incredibly safe, and that he’s had people aged 7 to 70 enjoy the tour.