New Zealand | Queenstown | Warren Clarke | Lake Wakatipu

It's the adventure of a lifetime - a 2,109-mile odyssey through verdant NEW ZEALAND - and we're taking you along for the ride. Bungee jumping, skydiving, and all.
Photographs by Warren Clarke.

THE SUDDEN SWOOSH OF WIND is disorienting, not to mention the first few somersaults. Which way is up? I wonder. The deafening roar of the Cresco turbine aircraft is gone in an instant. What have I just done? The pressure eases as quickly as it began; my eyes eventually open, watery and blurred; and a serene calm ensues as the earth below comes into focus. From this vantage point, Lake Wakatipu is a cobalt blue oasis surrounded by a lush, green, mountainous dreamland. It takes a few seconds, but my brain eventually registers that I have just voluntarily thrown myself out of a perfectly good airplane - something that, like most sane people, I've always said I'd never do. But, as anyone who has ever visited Queens­town, New Zealand, can attest to, never say never … around these parts, anyway.

Billed as the adrenaline-junkie capital of New Zealand - if not the world - ­Queens­­-town is one of the final stops on a 2,109-mile road-trip odyssey I've undertaken with James, a Kiwi and a fellow journalist, through both of the islands of this South Pacific wonderland, which has been made instantly recognizable by a surge of recent Hollywood affairs (the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong among them). Minds are changed quickly around here. To not bungee or skydive or parabungee or canyon swing means you won't have much to add to the dinner conversation that evening.

And this reversal of thinking happens in an instant. One minute, I'm safely on the ground, laughing it up with friends over a couple of pints of Speight's Old Dark 5 Malt Ale as we talk about the idea of jumping off bridges or out of airplanes. Ha-ha. The next minute, I'm airborne and plummeting to earth at terminal velocity (that's around 120 to 130 mph, in case you were wondering). Queenstown is the kind of place that flips switches in you that you weren't aware you even had. It's the kind of place that makes you think a 45-second free fall from 12,000 feet is a perfectly normal part of the day, like your morning cup of coffee. It's the kind of place that makes New Zealand special. And, as I'm soon to discover, there are many other things that do as well.