Still Alive!

Well I did it – and I made it. I was very much out of my comfort zone yesterday when we went canyoning. In case anyone hasn’t heard of canyoning you basically climb down into a canyon and then wade, swim or get pushed along the river by the rapids.

If you read my last post you’ll know this was a huge challenge for me because I really don’t like heights – particularly when you have to look over the edge of something – and since I was about six or seven years old I’ve been pretty scared of putting my head under water. That’s not without good reason; I almost drowned in a swimming pool at that age.

As you can imagine from these pics of our group there was a fair bit of looking over the edge getting down to the river Cetina and there was always a risk of your head ending up under the water while riding the rapids.

Have you ever had that feeling when you’re doing an activity in a group and you just know everyone else is better at it than you? I had that feeling a lot yesterday. I even asked one of the guides if they have the TV quiz show The Weakest Link over there. I kept waiting for someone to say ‘You are the weakest link. Goodbye!’ 😂

There were places where we had to climb up the side of the canyon a bit and dark tunnels to find your way through before heading back down to the water. The biggest challenge for me were the places where you can climb up the rocks a bit and jump into the water. Obviously that involves both my fears at once and since I don’t normally even jump into the swimming pool I wasn’t completely sure I was going to actually do it. There was always a way to get around these things so copping out was an option.

The first jump into the river was a smallish one so I decided pretty quick just to go for it. I’m sure I looked very awkward doing it but it wasn’t too bad and I only swallowed a little bit of water. I avoided the second one which was a lot higher but when it came to the third I watched lots of people doing it and started considering facing my fear.

It took a while but I decided to climb up the rock and do it. My son climbed up behind me and was encouraging me to go for it. I faltered quite a few times at the top. I couldn’t quite bring myself to actually jump. My legs were jelly looking over the edge but at the same time I was trying to tell myself that it was completely safe and everyone else was doing it and was fine. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to push yourself to do something that really scares you? If you have you’ll know what I was going through up there. Well in the end I managed to close my eyes and practically throw myself into the water. Unfortunately there is no photographic evidence because by the time I actually plucked up the courage the guide had put his camera away thinking that it wasn’t going to happen. 😝 Somewhere out there though are about 20 people who can vouch that I went through with it. The pic below shows someone else in the group doing the same jump so you can see what it looked like. I guess mine probably looked a lot less confident though 😂.

I’m not sure how much the whole experience helped me to conquer my fears but I’m glad I did it. Maybe next time it will be a little easier to persuade myself to jump even if I only manage to jump into the swimming pool.

I’m writing this post on the plane home so by the time I post it I’ll be safely back in my own house. No doubt it will be a lot cooler and damper than I’ve been used to for the last week or so but there will be benefits to being home too. At least I won’t get eaten by mozzies tonight, maybe just midgies!