waterfall

For the nearly three seconds that I sailed down the world’s tallest raftable waterfall––a 40-foot curtain of water gushing over and around my arms and legs, the guide shouting at us to cover our heads, nothing but a rock-strewn river below us––I had time to think. About that TLC song, of course, and how suddenly painful its wisdom was, but also about my strange new habit of extreme adventure sports. I’d greeted the day on a rickety mountain bike, careening down a sheer cliff face the width of a shopping cart, punctuated by boulders and the occasional aggressive ram. The next weekend, I would leap from a glorified gondola off one of the highest bungee platforms in the world, plunging 440 feet into a rocky canyon. My quest for adrenaline had led me here, to this waterfall. But it had also led me here, to southern New Zealand, the unofficial capital of adventure sports and about as remote of a relatively comfy place as you can find.