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Wednesday 28th February
Journal entry brought to you by Tami (again - Sophie is upstairs somewhere writing in her own journal - see how selfless I am being?! Actually it is only because we want to prove to Jon that we can keep up to date :-P )
So today breakfast was scheduled for 7.30am but Sophie and I (somewhat stupidly) decided it would be fun to go kayaking on the river beforehand, so we crept out at 6 O'Clock and Sophie said, come on and began to walk up the hill. I said "Isn't the river down there?" and she said " No it's up here, come on." So we then proceeded to walk up to the road only to find that Sophie's river was, in fact, merely a big puddle (or "lake") and that I had been right and the river was about 20 metres from where we'd started. Not to be deterred we strolled back down to the river and managed to find the kayaks. We had a bit of a struggle trying to get it to the water (those things are large and awkward I tell you) but eventually we managed, and we had great fun trying to get in without tipping the thing over! Eventually we were in with our oars and ready to go, so we set off in a random direction (I think it was downstream) and paddled our little hearts out. It was a lot of fun but I got absolutely DRENCHED beyond belief, I was soaking wet. Sophie managed to stay reasonably dry which I think shows she wasn't working hard enough to get the oar splash, ha ha. Anyway after a while we tried to return to land, and I'm telling you now, getting out of a kayak is the hardest thing in the whole entire world, we eventually had to enlist in the help of this man who was fishing with his son a little further down! So dripping wet and dirty we dragged the kayak back up the hill and went for showers before breakfast. I did feel rather energetic though, my arms ached so I felt like I'd been to the gym which was good.
Anyhoo then we all got back in the car and drove to the (fatal) Billabong factory shop in Jeffrey's Bay.... now for anyone who didn't see our rucksacks before we went, they were stuffed absolutely full, there was no room at all and they were pretty heavy too. So of course it made perfect sense that Sophie and I spent almost R400 each in there......I swear I have a problem, I've got to stop buying stuff, seriously.
But I did get some cool stuff, I got a pair of boarder style denim shorts, two Tshirts, a bag, a wallet and a ghetto hat that I've been wearing constantly because it's so cool!
Sophie bought some really teeny tiny short shorts, a Tshirt, some boarder shorts, and I'm pretty sure some other stuff as well but I can't remember it.
So with our money going seriously down, we went on to Tsitsikamma National Park where we had lunch and then went for a leisurely (is that spelt correctly?) stroll along the coast line which was very beautiful. Then it was on to the best part of the entire trip........
We went to Bloukrans Bridge, where we did the world's highest BUNGEE JUMP!! It's 216 metres over a beautriful gorge with trees and a river and the view is just stunning. Sophie, Paloma and I were all planning to do the jump, so we walked across the mesh cage under the road to the very centre to get ourselves set up. Just being there got me a little nervous, as some of you may know I suffer from a slight vertigo so I was a bit shaky but still wanted to do the jump. We found out that of the three of us, Sophie would go first, then me, then Paloma. They were also playing dance music on the bridge very reminiscent of Sugar (on a Tuesday) so we all kind of got into clubbing mode and were dancing around on the bridge like idiots, it was great fun. Then finally Sophie's turn came, and she was carried to the jump point, and it was so funny, they do a 5 to 1 countdown while you're standing there, and Sophie began screaming on 2! Then she jumped.....or rather appeared to fall. It was so cool watching her bounce up on the little monitor. When she came up she said it was so weird, at first she'd felt absolutely nothing, but then she just got a massive headrush. Then it was my turn and I got to the platform and was actually thinking, I'm not going to jump, I'm not going to jump. Then they counted to 1 and I felt them push me so I didn't really have a chance to back out, and for the first second I was scared. And then it was the weirdest sensation, it was like all my fear just flew out of me and I just felt unbelievably calm and relaxed and like I was soaring through the air - I felt so free. It was absolutely intensely the most brilliant feeling ever. Then I got hoisted back up and went seriously hyper from the adrenaline and hugged this random guy and shook his hand and said thank you. It's all on the DVD I'm very embarrassing. But then something weird happened, I went up to the two guys that had pushed me and I said to them, "Thank you so very much for pushing me, I wouldn't have done it otherwise and I'm so grateful (etc)" and they said to me, "We didn't push you, we never push anyone, people who stand there and say "I don't want to jump, we let them come back". You jumped by yourself" - how weird is that?! And I've watched the DVD and they didn't actually push me at all, I did jump. But I honestly didn't think I did. Funnily enough when we were talking to Vikki (roommate from a couple of weeks ago) who had also done the jump, she said that when they count down you just jump without thinking, and so I guess it's true.
We then went on to our next hostel which was called "Wild Tongue". It was okay, but there were no locks on the doors, and some of the windows were missing glass panes which meant that once again I was going to get attacked by vicious mosquitoes. Keitb then took us out for dinner to this amazing little restaurant, and we had the most fun and bubbly waitress EVER, she was so much fun! Then it was back to the hostel for a fully mozzificant night's sleep. A very amazing day. Can't believe we jumped off that bridge!
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