Six hundred monkey bars, a 216-metre drop, one world first: Thomas van Tonder crosses Bloukrans Bridge by hand

South African obstacle-course racing world champion Thomas van Tonder looked at the Bloukrans Bridge outside Plettenberg Bay — 280 metres long, arching about 216 metres above the river — and asked whether it could be crossed without ever touching the deck. This past week he answered it: hanging from monkey bars beneath the bridge, he crossed all 600 bars in 47 minutes and 37 seconds, at the first attempt, in favourable weather — the first time anyone has crossed a bridge this way. It is, as he put it, tackling the world's longest, highest and most exposed set of monkey bars — and finishing them.