Black water rafting, a stalagmighty good time

This week I got around to one of the things many people have told me I need to do here, black water rafting. As it turns out, this is a neat tube ride through caves with glowworms. I looked up my options and chose the tour labeled 'ultimate adventure' and 'the caving tour of choice for natural born adrenaline junkies.' Because as long I'm here, I'm going for it.

I've done this kind of thing before, going on a vacation tour by myself. And for some reason I don't think much about what it will actually be, or read much about it, or anything. I just read a small excerpt of the description and book it. Then I wait for whatever is going to happen to me happen to me. Right as it begins I think, "Wait. What am I about to do? Is this something I'm even capable of?" And at that point, it has to be.

I kind of feel like that is what I did for this trip as a whole. At some point, 'leave your current life, go to New Zealand, figure it out' entered the picture, and I just went with it. There was no real planning or thinking or even deciding really. Then one day, "Wait. What am I doing? Does anyone know why? Can I handle this?" But it seems to be going alright.

Back to cave.

At the tour company, they put us in wetsuits, grippy boots, harnesses, hard hats, and headlamps. There actually is an 'us' in this context. The tour was me and three happy couples. Of course. It was kind of great. I managed not to do the thing where I sink inside myself and try to fit in or not be noticed, but became the lovable (or at least tolerated) weirdo. I was making dad jokes and laughing at people and accepting help and having fun. As demonstrated by this group photo before we went to the caves.

I'm behind the tree on purpose.

And my customary face.

The tour itsef was great and beautiful and a bit unbelievable. We rappelled down into a cave where there were glowworms (which seemed to me like someone just stuck up a bunch of glow in the dark star stickers, but that would be great too). Then there was a short, dark, scary zipline. Then we jumped of a ledge and into the cave water for the rafting part. We floated in tubes through the glowworm illuminated cave. It was beautiful.
Even the last part of the tour was great; getting out of the cave. It was a part swimming, part walking, part crawling, part climbing waterfalls adventure. There were narrow passages and challenges and I actually felt like maybe I was a cave explorer. I loved it.

Afterwards we all had soup and bagels and talked and I kind of felt like I had friends. And maybe, for a moment, I did.