Adreneline Junkie Weekend

Last weekend was a weekend we had been looking forward to for quite awhile! We had told Murray about our bucket list and one of the things on that list was to cage dive with great whites! He said absolutely he could make it happen, we set the date for the weekend of the first and anxiously awaited for that weekend! We took off school that Friday and Murray and Mark(Murray's cousin in town from Graaf Reinet to help with the trip) picked us up in Big Red and another bus at 9am! Murray's bus was filled with the COST girls from Grahmstown and some German, Israel, and Belgium volunteers that are here learning English living with Murray.

Team America dancing in Marks car pumping ourselves up for bungee

Bloukrans Bridge

Mark and I walking onto the bridge

Team America filled Mark's bus and began to blast the tunes as we headed down the Garden Route to Plettenburg Bay. Our first stop was Bloukrans Bridge, which just so happens to be the location of the worlds tallest bungee bridge standing at 216m (709 feet) above the Bloukrans River. Katharine, Liz, and I were the only three from our car who were planning on jumping. When we arrived we all checked out the beautiful bridge and view and decided who was bungee jumping and who was going on the bridge. I am normally scared of heights but this bridge didn't bother me much. Nicole, Emily, and I paid to walk on the bridge with the group that was jumping so we could see them jump and experience the view from the bridge. We began walking the trail to the bridge and quickly realized the only thing holding us from falling to the ground was steel chicken coop wiring and ropes on the sides! You could look down onto the Bloukrans River, look left out to the gorgeous ocean, or look right and see the view of the mountains and hill sides. We walked up to the center of the bridge where they called out and ordered the jumpers then began to pump loud house music to get everyone's adreneline pumping for their jumps! The first person to jump was Katharine! She was fun up until the very last second when the workers stood her on the edge. She immediately said NO NO I can't do it! Everyone on the bridge began cheering her on and before we knew it she had stepped off the bridge. The energy of everyone on the bridge was amazing! Everyone was dancing, cheering, screaming, and just having a great time, I forgot I was even that high in the air! A little later Liz jumped, it was crazy watching the workers put padding around each jumpers ankles then wrap them in rope and off they went, it didn't seem like that would hold them in at all but it worked for all of the 12 jumpers!

The long walk off the side of the bridge to the center!

Watching the live videos of each person jumping off the bridge one at a time!

Check out the video Liz took with the GoPro jumping off the bridge:

Liz jumping with great form off the bridge

View from the left side of the bridge

All the jumpers and walkers in our group

 After jumping we walked back off the bridge and into Marks van and off we went to Plett! We stopped at the convenience store to grab some quick food and ended at a backpackers hostel called Albergos. I had never stayed in a hostel or anything like it before so I was interested to see what it was all about. It was a gorgeous place! There were a variety of rooms with only beds in them. We grabbed a room with three bunkbeds where Shannon, Emily, Nicole, Katharine, Liz, and I would sleep for the weekend! The rooms were small but we didn't care because the only time we were ever in them was to sleep and change. There were two buildings to Albergos; one two story building with bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen, and another building with a bar, pool table, lounge area, and computer area. Inbetween the buildings was a beautiful area with hammocks, a fire pit, tables, and lots of chairs for everyone to lounge. Our group of 12 were not the only people staying there for the weekend, there were people from Europe and different parts of South Africa also staying there as well! If I were to travel in South Africa I would definitely stay at a place like this because you get to mingle and meet people from all over!

Our group in our wetsuits

Heading out to find the seals

Seals in the water everywhere!

Seals swam right up to us!

wild seals right in our faces!

We threw our suitcases into the bedroom, changed into bathing suits and were off to our next adreneline filled activity of swimming with seals! We drove the busses down the hill to the ocean and began to sign our lives away once again. We were given wet suits and snorkel gear and I was proud to say we were a lot more successful at putting on the wetsuits this time than the first time! Once we all had our gear on we walked down to the ocean and hopped on the boat ready to sail off to the seals! Our instructor told us how to put on our life jackets and we were off! It was about a ten minute ride along the rocky coast to where the seals were. You could see the seals from afar and we knew we were close when we smelled them! EW! Our instructor said there were about 500 seals on the rocks and at least 100 in the water where we were about to swim. Our instructor wore a radar which kept sharks away and told us to stay within 50m of her at all times just incase a shark did try to approach us. Looking out to the choppy ocean and seeing hundreds of wild seals knowing I had to jump off the boat made me a little uneasy but I was NOT going to be the last person off the boat so I followed the crowd and hopped into the water! It took me a minute to get used to the snorkel gear and the choppy water but once I got used to the gear it was time to get used to seals surrounding me. All the girls were spread out and at one point I lifted my head and couldnt tell what was a seal and what was a human, the seals were all around and under us. The water wasn't that deep so we could swim down to the ocean floor and check it out. The baby seals were very interested in us and swam right up to us biting at our flippers and flopping around doing front flips right infront of us. It was almost like they were showing off and dancing for us. The seals would come right up to the cameras and kiss them, they were the cutest things! I got comfortable with the seals swimming all around us until I looked down and saw a giant momma seal swimming right below me. We were in the water for about 45 minutes and it was time to hop back into the boat and head back.

Hundreds of seals on the rocks

"Team America" being silly!

Check out the video of us swimming with seals:

Some of us relaxing in the hammocks at Albergos

After swimming with seals we headed back to Albergos to quickly shower (8 girls to two showers) and get ready for dinner! We didn't have hair dryers or straigheners or any products like that so we showered, did our makeup, and let all of our hair dry naturally. I have become impressed with my ability to do this now, when I first came here I was worried I'd never get to straighten and blow dry my hair and after having converter failures it is all I can do but now I love letting my hair dry naturally, its become so soft!

The Braii restaurant

 We got ready for dinner and we walked to a braii restuarant that one of Murray's friends owns. Nick (a student at NKU in the COST program) is placed in Plett, so we invited him and Carrie and Meredith (also NKU students in COST placed in South Africa) were visiting Nick for the weekend. It was awesome because we are all of the students placed in South Africa this year and we actually got the opportunity to meet up and have some fun for the weekend in South Africa!

NKU COST student teachers throwing our NORSE up!

The buffet of delicious grilled foods and salads

Nicole and I dancing

The dinner was delicious as always, fresh grilled fish, potatoes, veggies, and salads. There was a singer playing live music and singing just about any song you wanted to request. It was an outdoor restauarant under a large canopy tent and buffet style food. There were a lot of older couples and families sitting at the tables around us but they didn't know what we had in store for them! Just when we thought we were done with dinner and about to leave Nicole was dared to go up to the dance floor and dance. Murray teased me until I ended up going to join her on the dance floor. Next thing we knew two older couples joined Nicole and I dancing and soon after that the entire Freewalkers gang was up on the dance floor requesting songs and dancing the night away! We danced to newer songs and older songs and I even taught an older woman from Scottland how to do the Macarena. We danced all around the tables in the restaurant encouraging the older couples and families to get up and dance with us! We were having such a blast and completely changed the atmosphere of the restuarant, the owner came out and was taking pictures of everyone having a blast dancing and singing.The older couples didn't want us to stop whenever we would go to sit down they would request a new song and had us keep dancing with them, they were having a blast! We finally escaped the dance party and restaurant and walked home because we had an early morning coming Saturday!

Teaching a Scottland woman the Maccerena

Team America + Freewalkers + crowd dancing away!

Throwing chum around the boat

Saturday morning was an early one. We had to be in the car by 7:15, Murray bought us bread, yogurts, fruits, and granola for us to chow on in the morning. We were in the car and gone on time and headed to Mossol Bay which was two more hours down the Garden Route! We were all very tired and slept most of the drive until we were about 15 minutes away then it was time to pump ourselves up with loud music again, Mark didn't mind it one bit! We were all so excited to shark dive! We signed our lives away once again and followed instructions to walk to the boat! We all hopped on the boat and sailed away! We went out along the coast for about 30 minutes and stopped at a location in the ocean less than a quarter of a mile from shore! The workers started throwing chum into the water all around the boat and within 20 minutes we saw our first great white! About 45 minutes went by of throwing chum and putting the cage in and there were four huge great white sharks all around our boat!

The cage we were about to become bait in

Throwing the cage off the boat into the water

 The first group went into the cage and saw some action but the time the second group went in the sharks were angry and more aggressive. There ended up being six great whites at this time when I went into the cage (I was in the second group). There were 6 of us in the cage at one time and the workers in the boat would yell down to the left and we would all pull our bodies underwater and look to the left from where the shark was coming to breach and grab the bait. The great whites were beautiful animals swimming right up next to our cages rubbing against them.

Looking over the boat watching the great whites swim up towards us!

This is how close the sharks came to the cage

Flopping for the bait right in front of our eyes

Emily, Liz, and I in the shark cage!!

One shark ran straight into our cage with its mouth open and started chomping down on the bars of the cage! This was sooo unbelievably scary! The cage didn't seem that strong and was wide open so I could go underwater and look around in all directions. This was extremely creepy because I went down and looked around and saw sharks at every angle, I saw shadows of them behind me on the other side of the boat, under the cage, and in front of us it was the freakiest part of the shark diving. We were out in the ocean on the boat for almost three hours and each spent about a half hour in the cage watching the sharks. We headed back to shore to grab lunch and watch the video the workers had made for us!











Check out our shark diving video:

After lunch Murray and Mark took us to a small aquarium where we could swim with baby sharks and fish in a tank. These sharks were about two feet long and only had cartilage for teeth so we weren't too worried. We were only allowed to have three people in the tank at one time so we didn't stress out the sharks so Liz, Anna, and I slowly stepped into the 8 foot deep take and began to swim down and around chasing the sharks trying to pet them. It was definitely different swimming and touching these sharks compared to being in the ocean right next to great whites. We walked around Mossol Bay a little bit more checking out the gorgeous views and waves, bought some ice creams, and piled back in the van to head back to Plett.

Anna and I

Gorgeous Lighthouse

 When we got back to Plett we first drove down to the beach and hung out, did some body boarding, and got some sun for an hour or so before it was time to go back to Albergo's and quickly wash up and get ready for dinner on the beach. We ate dinner at a restaurant called The Lookout which had gorgeous views of the ocean and mountains. Emily and I walked up to a whale tale where we got some pictures. Have I mentioned how beautiful South Africa is?

Some of the crew before dinner!

 Sunday morning we slept in until about 10ish and headed off to  Monkey Land and Birds of Eden. These were both animal sanctuaries where monkeys and birds have been taken out of captivity from circus's and peoples homes and put into an area where they learn how to be monkeys again. It was so cool because there were all kinds of monkeys running around above us in trees, right through us, and one even laid on the ground playing with Mark. Birds of Eden was interesting but only because our friend Shannon  (from UK) was our "tour guide". She walked us through the place and told us what every bird was even though she might have been making half of them up. It was hilarious hearing Shannon tell us what every bird was in her English accent.

Super long suspension bridge made from twigs..

 

"Team America" being goofy

Mark told us to look left!

After Birds of Eden and Monkey Land we hopped back in the buses and headed off to zip lining. We stopped for a quick lunch and after about a half hour of driving ended at the zip line. We paid our fees, signed away our lives, and got strapped into the zip line harness. I was the first one to go on the first line. It was quick and relaxing! Dangling above waterfalls and tree tops across the river and through the valley. It was surprisingly peaceful and the perfect Sunday activity. Zip lining lasted two hours or so and we packed back up and finally headed home. It was a busy and adrenaline rushing weekend, our large group kept it eventful and memorable, I would repeat or recommend this weekend to anyone!