Gliding through the sky on WA’s longest highline

May last year, a crew of slack-lining superstars rigged a record -setting new line in WA. Jeremy and Nick share the story—and the photos—of the mammoth team effort that made it happen.

Grabbing the wheel and slamming the car door shut, I was ready to head south of Perth down the same familiar Forrest Highway. Except this time I was heading for a place only one of our crew had ever been—Forest Edge Recreation Camp, in Waroona, WA. 

I was headed there to be part of an attempt at what would be WA’s longest ever highline—an ambitious 520m affair.

Essentially a school camp, the location was an unusual place to try and rig a highline, but it had all the right ingredients: steep hills with a clear valley below, camp facilities on site, and friendly land owners who had given us the green light.

The one thing it didn’t have was suitable anchors to rig from… 

For the couple of years that I’ve known Nick Pontin, he’s tried planting many seeds and selling the idea of Waroona being the next place to open up new lines in the clouds. What he didn’t expect is that when he tried to get the land owners on board, they not only agreed, but immediately got to work installing permanent high ropes-style anchors at each end! Three massive wooden poles set specifically for us, exactly where we wanted (about 50m away from the spa overlooking the line).

We were set for an unforgettable experience. 

We had a few false starts with the weather unleashing rain and driving wind on us for days, as was to be expected in May. The plus side was it gave us plenty of time to prep everything. We had two teams, each with radios and different pulley systems, to haul across webbing that we had spent a day connecting to more webbing—between six of us we only just had enough to bridge the gap. 

We spent hours walking the valley to lay out the tagline we would use to haul the webbing. We had so much prepared and ready that we even found time to sit by the indoor fire and play cards, climb the abseil tower, take walks down to the creek, and take turns on a zipline that ran parallel to where we planned to rig. 

Finally, the weather cleared up. We were on. Like a well oiled machine we jumped to our positions and started rigging—only to find that our haul system was nowhere near adequate. There was no way we would have the strength to pull this line across.

Not to worry, we thought, we’ll attach it to the Prado and use that to haul! We had heard of “mechanical advantage” but this was a whole new level—sitting in aircon and hauling a 520m line by pressing down with your big toe was beyond luxurious. 

Now rigging a line like this is one thing, but being the first person on it is a different mindset. Much to our surprise and joy, property owner Graeme had his hand up to be the first to stand on it. He had never slacklined and was nearly retired. We couldn’t say no, but we did hold our breath while his slightly seized knees quivered as he stood upright on the anchors, proclaiming himself the first person to stand on the state’s longest highline. An absolute legend who’s truly stayed young at heart. 

The first person to actually “walk” on the line was Jack Gooch—a super accomplished athlete and a very good slackliner. He looked as smooth as butter as he walked from one side to the other, dismounting on the far side and coming back with the conclusion, “yeah it’s actually pretty nice to walk on, super chill”. 

He has got to be one of the coolest cats for staying present in big moments. The rest of us followed his lead and took turns playing, posing, shaking, and trying to stay present as we crossed the culmination of all our hard work. 

Yet another unusual feature of this line is that spectators could walk the valley beneath the highliner and almost have a conversation with them the entire way, watching them glide through the sky just above the Jarrah tree tops. It’s fitting that for something that took such a team effort, the resulting line provided a real social experience. 

By the end of the weekend, as is often the case, all the fun had to be packed up and the camp prepared for the visiting clients the following day. As we drove away, all that was left were the imposing anchors still standing tall at each end, presumably to be used as a reference point for the landowners’ stories. We felt very privileged to be able to spend our time playing and bonding in such an unusual way, and also very grateful for the team effort required to make it happen, including the unprecedented support from Graeme and Sonia Watson. 

Thanks to all the crew, including Nick Pontin, Jack Gooch, Carmen Schoenjahn, Matt Bray, Terence Chan, David Coppins, Rob Burnett, Jeremy Shepherd and the friends and family of everyone who came and had a beer, had a go, or had a look.