For visitors who’ve already ziplined the canopy and bungee jumped Bloukrans, canyoning, known locally as kloofing, offers a different kind of Tsitsikamma adventure: scrambling, swimming, jumping, and abseiling your way down a mountain gorge carved by a river over thousands of years.

What Kloofing Involves

A typical kloofing route follows a river gorge downstream, combining sections of hiking, swimming through pools, jumping off small waterfalls or rock ledges, and occasionally abseiling down steeper drops. Routes are graded by difficulty, with some suited to complete beginners and others requiring a reasonable level of fitness and comfort in water.

Where It Happens

The Tsitsikamma Mountains, with their network of forested gorges and rivers, provide ideal terrain for kloofing, and several operators based around Storms River and the wider Tsitsikamma area run guided trips into these gorges. Guides handle the technical elements, including any abseiling, leaving participants free to focus on the swimming and scrambling sections.

What a Typical Trip Looks Like

Most guided kloofing trips run for half a day, starting with a short hike into the gorge before working downstream through a combination of swims, jumps, and occasional short abseils. Groups are usually small, and guides carry safety equipment along with a first aid kit, given the remote nature of most routes.

Who Kloofing Suits

• Reasonably fit adults and older children comfortable in and around water.
• Visitors looking for something more physically involved than a standard guided walk.
• Anyone who has already done the more famous Tsitsikamma activities and wants something less crowded.
• Not ideal for those uncomfortable with heights, jumping into water, or swimming in cool mountain river water.

What to Bring and Expect

Operators typically provide wetsuits, helmets, and any technical gear needed for abseiling sections, but it’s worth bringing a change of clothes, a towel, and secure footwing suited to wet rock. Mountain river water stays cool even in summer, so the wetsuit is a genuine necessity rather than an optional extra.

A More Adventurous Side of Tsitsikamma

Kloofing is less well known among visitors than the canopy tour or Bloukrans bungee, but for those looking for a fuller-day, more physically involved adventure in the Tsitsikamma forests, it offers a genuinely different way to experience the mountains, one that few visitors think to seek out.