The Garden Route is arguably one of the most beautiful patches on earth. The thick forests and stretches of unspoilt coastline make up an exquisite landscape.
To see the area in its entirety, you need to soar above it. Skydive Knysna gives a new meaning to the term ‘scenic route’, but there can be no better perspective on the area, and indeed your life, as you plummet from a few thousand feet for a minute and then gently float back down to earth!
The idea of skydiving is either met with excitement or horror, depending on whether you are keen to earn your stripes as an official thrill-seeker. The truth is, there is no better Garden Route activity to give you the sense of freedom usually reserved for the birds.
A short 15 minute drive from Knysna gets you to Skydive HQ. Here you will be prepped on all the safety aspects of the jump and given a short course on tandem jumping to ensure that you know what to expect. This is purely from a technical perspective – no one can prepare you mentally for the biggest adrenalin rush of your life.
The flight takes about 20 minutes and travels up to 10 000 feet over Buffalo Bay and the Knysna Heads before your big leap into the air. To most people who haven’t jumped before, it’s this scary part that puts them off. What the extremely well trained, qualified and gentle natured instructors will tell you, is that actually this part is not what it seems. There is no sense of ‘dropping’, and neither do you feel like the ground is rushing towards you, it’s more a sense of floating – quite fast.
The instructor then pulls the cord and before you know it you are gently cruising above a landscape so gorgeous you will be sorry when your feet finally touch the ground ten minutes later.
If you are able to think straight at near terminal velocity then book the extreme package, which allows you to pull the ripcord and steer yourself for a smooth beach landing, then head back to your accommodation in Knysna afterwards for a well-deserved rest.
