My hands are sweating. I swallow, but it’s useless – my mouth is completely dry.
I’m standing on a small platform, 55 m above Mother Earth, the launch pad of Mpumalanga’s longest zip-line (really a fancy kind of foefie slide).
I stand here in spite of my numbing fear of heights.
It’s high, it’s far and it’s fast. The cable swoops down in a slack arch against the green of an orchard of orange trees far below.

The wooden platform at the end of the cable is 450 m away, but it looks a lot further.
They say you reach a speed of 90 km/h on the way down.
It’s hot, and I’m thirsty. A bird calls to my left, but I am too preoccupied to try to identify it.
My guide, Patrick “Baby Hippo” Fankomo, indicates it’s time to let go. I’ve been hanging on to a roof pole for dear life.

“Wait. I need a bit more time,” I hear myself say.
It’s a strange sensation to be afraid of heights. It feels as if the ground is drawing you towards it like a magnet. As if you’re going to fall to your death if you look over the edge.
My fear of heights has interfered with work in the past. Near Port St Johns I was asked to sit on the edge of a cliff for what would have made an ideal magazine cover picture. But I couldn’t do it and sat well back. And the picture didn’t make the cover…
There’s no turning back now. I’m strapped into the harness, and photographer Lawrette has already glided down the line… to be in position to take pictures of me. Now it’s a matter of pride. I step to the edge of the platform.

Time to give acro­phobia the boot. Earlier, when I spoke to Lizette from Induna Adventures on the phone, she assured me it’s safe.
And surely they wouldn’t be in this business if their customers were likely to die.
Irrational fear gets the upper hand again: Would I ever see my wife again? And our Labrador, Hunter?
I think about an article I read in Psychology Today in which a neuro­scientist from Emory University in Atlanta, Dr Michael Davis, wrote about the phenomenon of fear.
Fear is an incredibly strong emotion, he says. When you experience stress, as happens when something frightens you, your body releases hormones that help to calm you down and make you feel good. Some people can become addicted to the rush.

In his view, the more frightening a sport is, the more hormones are released, and the more you are exposed to them, the more likely you are to become addicted.
I’m not convinced.
I wasn’t convinced, either, when Louis Hanekom of Induna Adventures tried to alleviate my fears while we were getting into our harnesses: “Don’t worry, man; it’s over quickly. And you don’t have to do anything yourself. It’s not like an ordinary foefie slide.
“We’ve had a 2-year-old go down here, and an old guy of 92,” he said as he checked the straps and collected my wallet, cellphone and flip-flops – anything loose that can get lost.
You can go down Super­man style, on your stomach. Not for me, thanks, but Lawrette was game.
We got the safety talk: Keep your hands and hair away from the pulley – and enjoy the ride!

Here I stand, near the edge of the plat­form. Closer, Patrick says, you have to stand closer to the edge. I inch forward.
I feel a mixture of excite­ment and fear, but also a resigned acceptance of my fate.

“You ready?” Patrick wants to know.
“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” I say. My voice sounds hoarse and I have to clear my throat.
“Squat as if you’re sitting down in a chair,” Patrick instructs me while he grabs my harness at the back. “Now I’m going to count down from three...
“Three…”
My resolve is wavering.
“Two…”
If I fall, let me die instantly! I don’t want to suffer. My hands tremble. Say my hair gets caught in the pulley?
“One, go!”
And I’m gone. I want to scream but my voice fails me. The trees alongside are just a green band in my peripheral vision.
“AAAAAAAAAA…”
I take a breath. “AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”

The pulley whirs on the line above me, my hair flaps in my face. Sudden­ly, everything changes. I realise I’m not going to die. And it’s even fun. I open my arms and smile from ear to ear.
“Whoooooooooooo-hooooo!” I shout as I slide towards the end point. My legs, arms, body and head feel so light. The pulley brakes and I slide back to the end platform, where Smiley unhitches me.
I can feel the wooden platform beneath my bare feet. My legs tremble a bit and I’ve still got a silly grin on my face.

As Louis helps me out of the harness, he asks: “How was it?”
“Wow, uhm...” I try to describe my emotions.
“Fortunately it stops before you feel like you’re going to lose your organs,” Louis says.
Maybe Dr Davis was right. Now I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t do it again. It’s really not that scary, or far, or high.