So what's bungy-jumping like? FOOTNOTES Journal-ista Martin Stevenson has done it twice now and he's still not sure

"AAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhh", she cried as she plummeted to her certain death in the river 50 metres below. "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeheeheehee", she screamed as she bounced back up towards the bridge. "Shit", I thought as I stepped up to the ledge and waited for the bungy-master to count me down.

Before I jumped I'd wondered what they used to tie your legs together. After twenty-odd years of bungying they probably had some specially designed piece of kit made from rigorously tested high tensile, padded nylon with lots of velcro straps and comforting metal clasps. My mental picture hadn't included a bath towel but with almost a million safe jumps behind them they were obviously doing something right. My jumpmaster wore a body harness. My bath towel was blue.

We'd been spending too much time in Christchurch and decided to take a week off to check out South Island's highlights; Tekapo (for the cute church), Dunedin (for the odd cathedral), Milford Sound (for the ferry-spotting), Invercargill (for about thirty minutes), Bluff (for about thirty seconds) and Queenstown, for the skiing, jet-boating, paragliding, rafting and bungy-jumping. New Zealand's adrenalin capital 'nestles', as alpine towns tend to, among the Remarkables Range and although it's packed with tourists and the rampant development that goes with it, it's a nice change from the single storey towns that they build all over Southland to give the cows something to walk through. Our goal was the Kawarau Suspension Bridge, the world's first commercial bungy site and at 43metres the smallest of A.J. Hackett's operations (the largest in NZ is up the road at Skipper's Canyon and is an unnecessary 132metres) but we thought we'd start with the first and work our way up.

I'd always considered myself the kind of person bungy was invented for but my dreams the night before had been full of me jumping before they'd connected me to the bungy rope and as we walked onto the bridge I couldn't help feeling that I wasn't entirely prepared for what was about follow. While we were being strapped in I took my mind off it by telling Ali how proud I was of her for coming this far and how everything was going to be ok. She meanwhile appeared more concerned about the fact that she had her weight written in bright red marker pen on the back of her hand, but once she'd run out of stalling tactics she stepped up to the edge, waved to the camera and jumped. Simple as that. There was a hell of a lot of noise on the way down which continued pretty much until she was back on terra firma but she'd done it and was waiting at the bottom for me to join her.

I'd stripped down to a t-shirt for the jump, which in Queenstown in June is about as wise as driving across India with cow-print seat covers, but it did mean I could explain away the shaking. The twenty seconds between standing up and launching myself passed like five. Suddenly it was all happening too quickly. I'd waited for years for this moment. I wanted to say something important to mark the occasion. I wanted 'Fanfare for the Common Man' playing in the background as people flocked in their thousands to see me dice with death. As it was all I had was some passing cars, Ali, and a Japanese couple on their honeymoon. But the lack of ceremony is all part of the bungy experience. At the end of the day it's just down to you and your nerve. I shuffled up to the edge and the jumpmaster began the countdown: 5 - 4 - 3 - on 2 my legs decided it was time to go. Looking at the video of the jump I was quite impressed by my take-off, good solid swan-dive, nicely arched back, straight legs. Seconds later I was a flailing mess of elbows screaming my way towards the river.

It wasn't until my hands touched the water that I began to actually enjoy it. There's a moment when you don't quite believe the bungy will stop you and then you're hurtling back up, your face a huge grin.

The feeling of having completed the jump was a strange one. Any joy or elation I'd expected was tinged with a profound sense that I'd been looking the other way for the whole thing and had missed it. My first impulse on meeting Ali at the bottom was to ask her how I felt. For several hours after the jump we wandered around Queenstown in something of a daze, nothing a few beers wouldn't solve but for a while I was definitely not someone to be crossing streets unsupervised. The real reason you have red pen on your hand is so that the public excuse your behaviour and the police don't arrest you on drugs charges.

We left for Wanaka the following morning and as we headed out of Queenstown we passed by the bridge. A bus load of Brits were jumping; forwards and backwards, screaming and laughing, and on one occasion naked, towards the river. It made my less than elegant descent look a bit crap in comparison, but then in the world of bungy there's no one-upmanship, the very fact that you've jumped at all makes you part of the club. Well I'd jumped. It may not have been the most stylish jump ever but it was mine, and I've got the photos to prove it, and the video, and of course,
the t-shirt.