The Zambezi Gorge Swing

The mighty Zambezi river crashes and swirls 120 metres below, surging around a huge v-shaped bend called The Big Eddy. I’m stood on the Zimbabwe side of the spectacular Batoka Gorge on a small wooden platform overhanging the edge of the ravine, looking towards the Zambia side of the gorge – 300-metres away but seemingly within touching distance from this lofty spot. The raging river directly below, on the other hand, seems much further away. And yet I’m about to jump. Backwards.

A series of wires, ropes and pulleys hangs in the air between the steep walls on either side of the ravine. A cord connects me to this system via a main safety harness and a back-up harness, both strapped on tightly.

“What’s the best way to do the gorge swing?” I’d asked the instructor earlier.

“Handstand,” he’d replied without hesitation, “or backwards”.

So it is perhaps with a little false bravado that I find myself standing with my back to the gorge, ready for a backwards jump. I remember doing a bungee jump in New Zealand ten years before, when youthful exuberance had made it seem so easy. Now, older and a little less sure about these things it feels like walking the plank of a great pirate ship.

Wondering again why I’m doing this, I glance upstream towards the Victoria Falls bridge, which forms the border post between Zimbabwe and Zambia. A swathe of mist beyond the steel arch identifies Victoria Falls itself, known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’. Its presence is tangible and I edge backwards until my heels hover over nothingness, making me almost overbalance.

It’s now or never, I think and step backwards off the ledge. I plummet, fast, my feet scrabbling for non-existent ground as the full force of gravity takes over. For several seconds I free fall, as a grey blur of rocks at the bottom of the gorge rises rapidly towards me. The cliff wall, tinged green by trees clinging on desperately to the sheer face, rushes past in a mixture of confusion and exhilaration. 

Then, almost as suddenly I swing out across the river like a pendulum, as the safety ropes take over and divert my fall. I laugh out loud and beam a huge grin that lasts for the rest of the day, as blood and adrenalin surge around my body.

Swaying to and fro as my momentum gradually decreases I begin to appreciate the stunning surroundings more fully. The Zambezi powers past 30-40 metres below, still a long way from its ultimate destination: the coast of Mozambique, where it meets the sea. Here, the grade 4-5 rapids on either side of Victoria Falls provide some of the best commercial white-water rafting in the world and I imagine myself jumping in and being carried away in the frothing current of Africa’s fourth-longest river.

Upstream, a beautiful rainbow stretches across the gorge in front of the bridge and the Falls. The constant spray created by the ‘Smoke That Thunders’ makes rainbows an almost permanent sight. But this is a particularly enviable – if somewhat dizzying – view. One worthy of a leap of faith to see.

Duncan Mills is Deputy Editor of Traveller Magazine and director of & Publishing.