I wanted to bungy jump years before I actually did it in 2001. I decided that if I was going to take the plunge, I needed to do so in New Zealand so a lot of my trip planning was based on getting to Lake Taupo where there are many adrenalin pumping adventures to pursue. I got in a jet boat ride, walked in a volcanic park and even tried for skydiving daily but the weather just wouldn’t hold.

I did manage to get my bungy jump in as you can act like an idiot in pretty much any weather. There was something reassuring about Taupo Bungy (picture) that attracted me. It was probably the fact that you jump ‘into’ a river. Nice soft landing if things go wrong.

I was very brave driving to the site from my motel, and then paying the fee and walking up the plank by myself, but once they strapped my ankles into the harness and made me stand on the edge of the tower, I lost all that bravado. You don’t get a refund if you can’t get the nerve to do the jump, which is a very good thing. Somehow I mustered up the courage to literally fling myself off the podium, and it felt like I screamed the entire way, but reviews from bystanders told me that I was braver than most guys that went before me. Ah yes, I was proud to be a Kiwi and couldn’t wait to tell all my Kiwi relatives. All of whom of course looked at me like I was an insane foreigner, and not like I had gone through a rite of passage.

That bungy jump is an important symbol to me of how I want to live my life. My mother always wanted to jump, but my dad is afraid of heights and he couldn’t stand the idea of her putting herself in danger doing something crazy after he had spent years keeping her alive.

After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she tried to do things she had never done before. Unlike me who has been going on every ride at Playland annually since I was 10, she hadn’t even been on a rollercoaster. We went on the only ride that was safe for her deteriorating body together - a ferris wheel at a traveling carnival. She never made her bungy jump - by the time she tried her bones wouldn’t have held her.

I think I have done my one bungy jump, although I wouldn’t ever rule out another if the time was right. This summer I want to head over to Vancouver Island to the Bungy Zone or up to Whistler and try something different, like a nice zip line flight.