A few weeks ago I told you I’d reached out to the team who organised the first South African adaptive paraglide. I asked them if they would be willing
to come onto my A Different Way of Traveling podcast to chat about adaptive paragliding.
Matthew van Zyl, the owner of Square1 Paragliding, was happy to chat to me and I got to find out all about this exciting and inclusive sport. I also got to chat to Tarryn Tomlinson from Able2Travel, who was one of the first to try out the new fly chair.
I’m the first to admit that I’m not the world’s most adventurous person. In fact, I’m far more likely to be found with my head buried in a book -audio, of course – or listening to some of my favourite rock songs. Yet it was fascinating to learn more about how paragliding has been made more accessible for those who are wanting to give it a try. And I was excited to learn how inclusive Matthew believes it to be.
Certainly, from what he told me in the interview, the fly chair would be able to accommodate a broad range of disabilities. Matthew also explained how the fly chair operates and explained how easy it is for him, as the pilot, to communicate with the person in the fly chair. And he was able to answer my questions about takeoff and landing. All of which reassured less-than-adventurous me!
Tarryn reinforced what Matthew told me and it was wonderful to hear about the experience from her perspective as a wheelchair user.
So, if you’re interested to learn more about adaptive paragliding, you’ll find the podcast at http://iono.fm/e/1129768
And who knows, maybe you’ll see me leaping off the side of the mountain and soaring into the air in the adaptive paraglider sometime … After all, I did try scuba diving!
