Hanging 216m up, he crossed Bloukrans Bridge on 600 monkey bars

South African obstacle course racing world champion Thomas van Tonder hung 216m above the Bloukrans River and crossed the arch of Africa's highest bridge one monkey bar at a time. Red Bull posted this clip of the crossing on TikTok on 27 October, tagging him as @thomas_ocr, and it passed 200,000 views within hours.

He did it on 26 October. Red Bull says the course had 600 bars over about 280m, starting with a 45° climb, then across the top of the arch and down the other side, all by hand. He finished in 47 minutes and 37 seconds. Red Bull's TikTok caption calls it a 300m crossing, but its own write up and The Citizen put it at about 280m. He wore a safety harness the whole way.

The Bloukrans Bridge carries the N2 between the Western Cape and Eastern Cape and is best known for its bungee jump. Red Bull says a full replay of the crossing will be on Red Bull TV from 28 October.

What the comments are saying

@toucanscreech:

"My dad did this on the way to school" (1336 likes)

@cheeezusmaximus:

"My parents did this starving for 3 days on the way to school" (149 likes)

@jonoruns:

"Crazy that we all have to do this someday" (41 likes)

@edits_new51:

"my scared of heights ahh could never 😭✌️" (6 likes)

@cheeparchal:

"what our parents did to get to school" (5 likes)

@iamphoebe2.0:

"The S in RedBull stands for safety" (5 likes)

@catobball:

"i thought the bars were rolling for a sec" (4 likes)

@bluoptimist:

"Just… a couple… few… hundred… thousand… bars to go" (3 likes)

Video and image: @redbull on TikTok.