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GEORGE NEWS & VIDEO - To soar above the world as free as a bird is a dream many people share. 

For intrepid Paula Heim from Eppertshausen in Germany, this dream came true a few days after her 80th birthday on 19 January.

To escape the winter chill in Europe, Heim and her family decided to celebrate her milestone birthday by spending a couple of weeks in sunny South Africa. 

While travelling the Garden Route, she saw a couple of paragliders dangling in the sky and decided there and then that paragliding is something she wanted to try.

She and her son Jürgen (48) immediately booked tandem flights with Lucille and Jorg Bueble, owners of Flytime Paragliding, and their adventure would soon be off to a flying start!

On Friday 25 January, nearly a week after her 80th birthday, Heim and her son shared the sky with a few other paragliding pilots high above Wilderness at the Map of Africa.

Click here for a photo gallery.

Heim, who wasn't the slightest bit nervous before the flight, was ecstatic afterwards. "Sehr schön! [Very pretty!] Super!" she said after touchdown on the beautiful beach.

Watch a video below:

Paula Heim (80) with her tandem pilot Jorg Bueble on her left, Bueble's wife and business partner, Lucille with her passenger, Jürgen Heim, and Flytime's assistant Leon Minnie after touchdown on Wilderness beach.

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