Everybody dies, so the saying goes, but some people never get round to living. If you're worried you might be one of them, why not head south? There are few better places than South Africa to experience just what being alive is all about. Here are ten activities to send your heart racing, your mind reeling and your stomach churning. Your eyes will grow big and round and then, slowly-as you start breathing again-your mouth will spread into the biggest smile possible. Which may explain why adrenalin is so addictive.

1. Fly Through the Trees with the Greatest of Ease
There are only three treetop canopy tours in the world, the newest and longest of which is in the Tsitsikamma Forest on the Garden Route. Securely strapped into a climbing harness clipped onto a strong steel cable strung up between giant trees, you step into the void and zoom through the forest canopy to the next platform. You can choose to go fast, in pursuit of that adrenalin rush, or you can slow down and appreciate the view-it's not often you get to hang suspended 25m above the ground, all alone in the canopy of an ancient indigenous forest. Some of the slides are about 80m long and you can let go, spinning slowly, looking down onto a virtually pristine forest floor covered with tree ferns and mosses. Check out the construction techniques-the cables are cleverly attached to the trees without causing any damage whatsoever. There are eight slides and a rather scary, but safe, suspended walkway.

2. Ride Radical Rapids
There are a dozen great rivers to raft in South Africa, but a few stand out. Probably the best in terms of scenery, as well as rapids, is the Blyde in Mpumalanga Province (aptly named, as blyde means "happiness" in Afrikaans).
Running through a dazzlingly beautiful gorge, this deep turquoise-blue river offers constant action. Commercially-run rapids are graded from 1-5, according to their difficulty. Here, a few gentle Grade-twos offer a warm up before the action starts. Some compulsory portages are interspersed with a good sprinkling of pretty challenging Grade-fours and -fives. Unlike most commercial trips on big water, you don't do this one in a raft with a guide-the river's too narrow. So, it's just you and your partner in a two-man raft. Fortunately, accompanying guides in swift kayaks keep a hawk-eye on their charges.
Although this is an escorted trip, the Blyde is not the best choice for a first rafting excursion. There are a number of milder options on offer-including a gentler section of the same river. You can also join an escorted kayak trip on the Blyde and aspiring kayakers can take a few days to do a white-water course here.

3. Kloof Wild Gorges
Kloofing (known as "canyoning" elsewhere in the world) is the art of following a mountain stream down its gorge, or kloof. It usually involves jumping off high cliffs or sliding down sheer waterfalls. Names like Suislide and Kamikaze Kanyon give you an idea of what you'd be in for.
Probably the most radical kloof in South Africa is the Mfongosi Gorge in Zululand. Here you face two near-vertical slides of about 30m and another gentler slide with an 8m free fall at the bottom (none compulsory). An old favourite is Suicide Gorge, near Cape Town, which has a number of jumps over waterfalls into deep pools. Once you've started, you can't turn back and have no choice but to fling yourself into the void from about 8m - although you can choose to make it higher. There are a few tamer options, one of the prettiest of which is the Stormsriver Gorge on the Garden Route.

4. Do the World's Highest Bungee
It's official. The Bloukrans Bridge in the Eastern Cape Province is the highest commercial bungee jump in the world. There's nothing difficult about this, but you will need nerves of steel (or at least a good head for heights) to negotiate the walkway onto the supporting arch of the bridge, from where you jump.
And then there's the jump itself. It's 216m high. Need we say more?

5. Skydive Cape Town
Now, in theory, there is very little difference between jumping out of a plane in one place or another, but only by skydiving in Cape Town can you have a photo of your jump with Table Mountain in the background. That may sound like a strange motivation but, if you fancy a picture of yourself hurtling earthwards to put on your desk or your desktop, you may as well have an impressive backdrop.
First timers can choose between a standard static line jump (the chute opens automatically), a tandem jump or an accelerated free fall (AFF) course. The tandem is pretty self-explanatory: you're strapped to an instructor, who controls the jump. You exit the plane from 3000m and enjoy about half a minute of free fall. The AFF course starts with a static line jump; then your second jump is from 3600m, with two instructors holding onto you as you exit the plane. They stabilise you and then let go, allowing you to experience true free fall, before veering away to watch you open your chute. The term "fast track" takes on a new meaning.

6. Kitesurf Langebaan
If, as a child, you flew those little diamond-shaped things on strings that required you to run a ten-second hundred metres to launch them, forget everything you think you know about kites. Modern kites are not only made from high-tech, brightly coloured materials, they are also awesomely well designed and can generate enough lift to pick a Springbok rugby forward up off the ground.
Head out to Langebaan Lagoon, about an hour's drive up the West Coast from Cape Town, and see what can be done with these outrageously fun toys. You could just fly one, but that's a bit of a waste of all that power. So sign up for a kitesurfing course. After learning the ground handling, you'll use the kite like a sail to move yourself across the water, leaving windsurfers in your wake. Once you've got the hang of that, you can move the kite into "lift" position and fly high above the waves. While you're up there, you may as well do a somersault or two to impress the spectators at the coffee shop on the beach. And when you come back down to earth (well, water), you can utilise that same lift to give you a soft landing.
It isn't actually that easy, but it's worth learning and at Langebaan you'll get the chance to watch some of the world's top kitesurfers strutting their stuff.

7. Fly Like a Bird
South Africa is a fantastic place to learn to paraglide, both because the exchange rate makes it so affordable and because you can qualify in a short time as the fantastic weather means very few no-fly days.
Learning to fly is all about controlling your canopy. Once you've mastered that, you're away. Traditionally your first flight would have been a hop from a sand dune, but many beginners have flown for up to an hour on their very first launch from Porterville. This site, just north of Cape Town, offers the unusual combination of thermic cross-country flying and an easy foot launch, so it's also a great place for experienced pilots who want to break a few personal records. Another fantastic location is Table Mountain-one of the great flying sites of the world-but with its tricky cliff launch and treacherous winds, it's only for very experienced pilots.

8. Abseil off Table Mountain
When rock climbers have reached the top of a climb, the quickest way down is to abseil-which is pretty much why this technique was developed. But there are a number of dedicated abseiling sites in South Africa, so you don't have to claw your way up a sheer cliff by your fingernails to earn the thrill of abseiling off. Probably the most spectacular option is Table Mountain. The actual abseil itself is only about 100m, but you hang out roughly a kilometre above the city. If you don't have a head for heights, you'll find this pretty stressful, but the views are awesome. Other scenic options include the Steenbras River Gorge, the Stormsriver Gorge and Knysna Heads.
Wearing a climbing harness, clipped onto a securely attached rope, you simply walk backwards down the cliff, controlling your descent down the rope. Once you reach an overhang, you lose contact with Mother Earth, but if abseiling sounds a bit tame, you could try rap jumping. The principle's the same, only the rope is attached to the back of the harness so you get to run down the cliff facing the ground. You can do this at Knysna Heads and there are a few urban adventure companies offering rap jumping down buildings.

9. Get Attitude at Altitude
Ever noticed how everything looks different from the air? Well, try upside down. Squeeze yourself into the passenger seat of a Pitts Special, a Harvard Trainer or a historic Tiger Moth, and get ready for the ride of your life. After a quick climb, you'll have a few minutes to enjoy the view before your universe starts going off kilter. Steel yourself as you dive into a loop and then look towards the wing as you stay still and the world turns through 360 °. Then try a roll, hang suspended vertically or fly upside down. You'll never look at the world the same way again.
If money is no object and you really do believe in the adage "go too fast, fly too high", you could take advantage of the fact that South Africa is one of the few places in the world where you can fly in an ex-military supersonic jet. You could skim just on the conservative side of the sound barrier in a Hawker Hunter or a Buccaneer, trying a few high speed combat manoeuvres such as rolls, stall turns and loops, perhaps even flying in formation. Or make like James Bond in a L39 Albatross (as featured in Tomorrow Never Dies). But while you're about it, you may as well try the full supersonic bit. Yes, that means flying faster than 1100km/h. Eat your heart out, Chuck Yeager.

10. Follow the Feeding Frenzy
You've dived every coral reef around, explored kelp forests and swum with whale sharks, dolphins and rays-even dived under ice and in caves. You've done it all, right? Not quite.
It's only in the last few years that local enthusiasts have started diving what's rapidly becoming known as "the greatest shoal on earth". Around July, billions of sardines make their way up the east coast of South Africa, accompanied by huge pods of Common and Bottlenose dolphins, small groups of Cape fur seals, schools of Copper and other sharks, large game fish and enormous flocks of Cape gannets, shearwaters, albatrosses and gulls. Once the shoal reaches the Wild Coast off the Eastern Cape it veers inshore and stays pretty close to the beach all the way to Durban. It's not an easy dive-you could spend days at sea and see almost nothing, but if you consistently go out for about a week, you might strike it lucky. The Common dolphins habitually herd the smaller fish into a tight bunch called a "baitball" and circle to keep the captive lunch intact. Other opportunists joining in the feast may include a few sharks, seals or dive-bombing gannets. It's a real feeding frenzy, but you should stay just outside the food chain (hopefully).

If you'd like to dive in South Africa but this sounds too hard core, don't worry, there are hundreds of dive sites, ranging from warm, shallow coral reefs to-well-the sardine run.