South Africa holds a genuine world record for adrenaline: the highest bungee jump from a bridge anywhere on earth. The Bloukrans Bridge, on the Garden Route in the Tsitsikamma area, drops 216 metres to the river below, and it has been run commercially since 1997 by Face Adrenalin with a long safety record. This page is about the jump as an activity, where it sits among the country’s big drops and what it asks of you. For the Tsitsikamma park itself, its forests, the Storms River mouth and the famous suspension bridge, see our Tsitsikamma guide.
The Bloukrans experience is more than the fall. You reach the launch by walking out along a catwalk slung beneath the bridge deck, 200 metres of open air directly below you, and for many people that walk is the hardest part, harder than the jump itself. Then comes the briefing, the harness, the count and the release. It’s worth knowing how the record actually stands: Bloukrans is the highest bridge bungee, but not the highest jump of any kind, since Macau Tower in China is higher at 233 metres from a platform, and Switzerland’s Verzasca Dam reaches 220 metres. The bridge title is Bloukrans’s own.
If you’re not on the Garden Route, or you want the thrill in a city, two other drops are worth knowing, though neither is a bridge bungee. Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium runs the Big Swing, an 80-metre arc out over the pitch, and Orlando Towers in Soweto offers a 100-metre jump between two painted cooling towers. None of these is for everyone. Bloukrans runs roughly 40 to 140 kilograms with a minimum age of 14, and any serious height fear or heart or back condition is a real reason to sit it out and send a braver friend. Go in honest about your nerve and your body, and the big one is the jump of a lifetime.
