Mossel Bay Zipline

Mossel Bay Zipline runs from the cliff top above the St Blaize Trail down to a landing deck at The Point, on the small peninsula that shelters the town's harbour. Its operator — part of the SA Forest Adventures group — describes it as "the longest over-the-ocean zipline in the world", and gives the cable as 1,100 m long, launching about 90 m above sea level, with riders reaching some 80 km/h. South African media have repeated the claim since the line opened in January 2020, but it belongs to a category no record body keeps: Guinness World Records maintains a longest-zip-wire record, not an over-water one. Founder Clinton Lerm has said he only learned of the distinction when a tourist mentioned it to him — a superlative achieved, in his telling, purely by accident.

The ride is hands-on rather than hands-free. Riders check in at the Point Road office, are harnessed and briefed, then shuttled up to the launch platform on the cliffs; on the way down the cliffs and out over the sea, the dominant hand rests open on the cable as a brake while the other stays on the pulley, and a guide at the bottom signals when to start slowing. Solo and tandem rides are both offered. The operator warns, cheerfully, that the sea can reach you — a towel is recommended against the odd splash from an incoming wave — and below the landing deck there is a tidal inlet you are welcome to swim in while the rest of your group comes down.

What carries the experience, though, is the ground it crosses. The cable tracks the cliffs of the Cape St Blaize headland, beneath a squat lighthouse first lit on 15 March 1864 whose beam still reaches roughly 25 nautical miles out to sea. Directly below the lighthouse is Cape St Blaize Cave, excavated in 1888 in one of the earliest cave digs in South Africa, with deposits reaching deep into the Middle Stone Age. The bay itself is where Bartolomeu Dias came ashore on 3 February 1488, naming it São Brás for the saint whose feast day it was. Between roughly June and November, southern right and humpback whales move through the water below, and gannets, gulls and oystercatchers work the cliffs all year.

Practically, everything here is weather-led. Strong wind or rain can bring weight restrictions or close the line outright, and the operator reschedules or issues a year-long voucher rather than refunding. Riders must be at least eight years old, under 120 kg and under 1.9 m tall, with long hair secured and no spectacles on the cable. At the time of writing the ride costs R800 per person, booked as a walk-in at the Point Road office. Mossel Bay is windy for most of the year with only mild seasonal variation, so an early slot and a flexible afternoon are worth more than picking any particular month.