Falling past fear

I’M NOT SURE whether to close my eyes or keep them open and watch.

My daughter is perched on the edge of a 40-metre cliff and about to lurch off backwards in a dizzying fall to the bottom.

Okay, so it’s not so much a fall, as a controlled descent from a sturdy abseil platform and she’s attached by swathes of climbing ropes safely anchored by smiling and encouraging Full On instructor, Jason Whitelaw.

Despite that I still have the urge to capture the light of my life in a jar like Tinkerbell and put her safely away on a shelf. But that’s what today is all about, challenging our perceptions, fears and ourselves.

We’re at Washpen Falls, near the charmingly named settlement, Windwhistle, outside Darfield and about an hour’s drive from Christchurch. The falls are nestled in the foothills, near the dramatic and picturesque Rakaia Gorge and Lake Coleridge High Country.

We are taking part in a team building excursion with Full On, a personal development program – although ‘team building’ might be a bit passé. Jason tells us we’re weaving fun, adventure, learning and development into a social get together.

“It’s personal development that is progression-based. We lead you through the process step by step so at each stage you can choose how you want act. How you think influences your behaviour,” he grins widely.

And there’s no doubt he knows what I’m thinking as I prepare for my slide down to the bottom of the bush-clad volcanic rift. It’s probably much the same as most people facing a tough mental and physical challenge, “I can’t do this, it’s impossible!”

Apparently my RAZ is all wrong. I’ve tuned my Reticular Activating System or RAZ for short, to see the impossible in the situation. I can’t do it because I think I can’t. Finally after some words of encouragement from Jason, I step back off the platform. It turns out to be easier than I expect and I walk slowly down the wooden wall under the platform with a white-knuckled grip on the rope.

There’s a short pause when the wall ends and I swing out into nothingness. As I rotate slowly round, on one side of me are the spectacular Washpen Falls and on the other a view across the Canterbury Plains.

We’re just abseiling today but if we’d come in a bigger group either as a corporate social outing, or youth development program, we would also have done the Big Swing and Leap of Faith.

“Step by step you can program your mind to manage your emotions,” says our other guide, Madeline Peacock as I look dubiously at the two high rope activities.

I have intimacy issues so I find some of Madeline’s exhortations to examine my feelings a bit confronting and my responses usually resort to my default position of inane joke, but she engages Victoria who happily shares her affirmations and thoughts.

As we trek back through the native bush, tui, bellbirds and tomtits serenade our achievements at every turn. Totally fearless by now, we also stop to run our finger over the weeping beech trees and taste the honeydew secreted by scale insects on the bark.

We stop for a break at a small man-made lake on which a large rubber tyre drifts aimlessly in the breeze and fish create ripples as they lunch on floating bugs.

Then it’s back to the hut for a final debrief and the climax to the day. With one blow (after a few tries) we each split a square pine board in two – proof again that once you stop seeing the impossible, anything is possible.

See https://www.washpenfalls.co.nz/ for more details on the different experiences and to book a night to stay in one of the rustic cottages. Washpen Falls is reached via a gorgeous two-hour loop walk.

♦ ENDS