A swaying walkway amidst the tree tops of world-famous Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town has been officially opened to the public to market the park’s centenary.
Fashioned along the lines of a snake skeleton and built to imitate the motion of one, the unique 130 metre long steel-and-timber structure dips and winds through a canopy reaching a height of roughly three storeys.
A bench is nestled against foliage at one point and another is placed on a rise where one has a view the city and surrounding mountains.
The snake-inspired walkway, which touches the ground on one end in the aptly-named Enchanted Forest, moves gently as one walks along it.
It is officially known as Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway and nicknamed the "Boomslang" after the tree-dwelling snake.
Yesterday standing on a peak on the Boomslang, botanical horticulturist Adam Harrower(cor) said it had taken a full year to construct it.
"There were some big challenges. The design is completely unique. Nothing like this has ever been done before," he said.
About 20 tons of steel and five-and-a-half kilometres of steel bar had been used to make the R5 million walkway, paid for with bequests from benefactors.
Harrower said one of the biggest challenges had been working around all the trees and shrubs in the area.
A small mobile crane, which could reach up to 15 metres, had been used to put the structure together "like a giant jigsaw puzzle".
Any damaged landscape had then been repaired.
Harrower said the original idea for the Boomslang stemmed from eight years ago when Alice Notten(cor), an interpretation officer at Kirstenbosch, thought of constructing an elevated viewing deck.
This idea ended "at the bottom of a pile at the back of a filing cabinet," but was resurrected for the centenary.
Yesterday Cape Town resident Helena Wessels(cor), 75, and her sister, Anne-Marie van Zyl(cor), of Canada, visited Kirstenbosch for the first time in years to see the walkway.
Wessels said: "I had no idea what it is. Everyone should come and see it… It's lovely to walk among the trees."
The walkway is free to visitors who buy tickets to enter Kirstenbosch.
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