Adrenaline buzzes come in all shapes
There’s nothing quite like the buzz you get before doing something that, theoretically, could lead to loss of life or limb. If you’re about to embark on an adventure with a reputable operator, the only thing you’re really in danger of losing is your dignity (as I discovered after doing a backwards bellyflop off a waterfall on a black-water rafting tour), but you get the benefits of your sympathetic nervous system boosting your adrenaline levels nonetheless.
Watching a video of tourists jump off far higher waterfalls on a canyoning adventure in Abel Tasman National Park the day before I was set to do it myself, I began to wonder whether you had to have something missing to be truly adventurous.
The apparently inbuilt survival instinct perhaps. Or common sense.
These people were hurling themselves down ‘‘slides’’ of granite partly submerged by whitewater rapids and off metres-high waterfalls while smiling.
Taking a speedboat to the park the next morning, and following the bush trail to the canyon (an adventure in itself), I reached levels of nervous excitement I don’t think I’d experienced since my first ride on the Super Loop rollercoaster.
My strategy of doing what I had to do without thinking too hard about it seemed to work at first. I followed the rest of the group into the frigid Torrent River, abseiled down a rock, did a backwards star jump into a pool of water . . . then suddenly feared I could go no further.
This fear proved well-founded: I’d dislocated my shoulder on impact with the water and had to be helped back up the canyon and airlifted to hospital to get things snapped back into place. I have no doubt my injury was down to pure bad luck (the trip has excellent reviews on TripAdvisor) and the guys from the company concerned handled the situation professionally and with compassion.
Still, it served as a reminder that any adventure activity carries an element of risk. We wouldn’t get that addictive buzz from our favourite ‘‘stress hormones’’ if it didn’t.
Eight months later, I’m definitely craving that buzz again (preferring to attribute it to resilience rather than a lack of common sense).
But you don’t have to throw yourself off waterfalls, out of planes, or indeed do anything remotely death-defying to be an adventure traveller. Anyone open to new and off-the-beatentrack experiences (cultural and culinary, as well as extreme activities) qualifies. In this issue, we look at some of the many dopamine-inducing experiences this planet-sized adventure park has to offer, from kayaking and hiking in Abel Tasman to going on a pygmy elephant hunt in Borneo.