Katy has a new interest. Forget skiing, forget snowboarding, forget (for the moment) skydiving and bungy jumping. Katy likes flying aeroplanes. No, not flying IN aeroplanes, but actually being at the controls and manoeuvring the plane around the sky.

Before arriving in Wanaka, we had noticed a company called U Fly Wanaka offering an hour-long session, including 30 minutes actually in the air, for only NZ$195 (about £74). That sounded like a bargain and after a while I decided I'd have a go as well, even though it's the sort of thing that's much more up Katy's street than mine.

The instructor was called Ruth and she started off by introducing us to the plane, an Italian-made Tecnam Light Sports. It was a very, very small aircraft with a tiny cockpit barely big enough for two. It apparently only weighs about 750lbs, or the same as two good-sized American Football players.

Ruth explained how the controls worked and how moving the joystick affected the flaps and the way the foot pedals controlled the rudder. Given that we wouldn't be handling take-off or landing, she said it was all we needed.

I took first turn and even did most of the taxiing to the runway before Ruth set the plane going along the grass strip. Almost as soon as we hit 50mph the nose started to come up all by itself and we were away.

We didn't fly very high, but the view was spectacular. At 1,000 feet above the ground, you are low enough to see the details on the ground that you miss from a commercial jet flight. So there I was, flying over green fields and a turquoise blue lake, with snow-capped mountains at the water's edge.

After a few minutes, I was officially put in charge of the dual controls and told to turn a bit to the left or right as I fancied. It was all a bit weird and I never felt like I really knew what I was doing, but managed to do a bit of manoeuvring as well as taking photos when Ruth took over at various points.

Part of the strangeness was that although 'flying' is more complicated than, say, driving a car because of the extra dimension of up and down, in other ways it is simpler. Imagine learning to drive and drifting off a straight line by 10 yards, or taking a corner 5 yards away from the kerb. You would have an accident within minutes. In the air, however, the tolerance is much greater. You can meander all over the place within reason and it doesn't matter at all.

The simplicity continued when we came into land. Ruth had been checking constantly with the control tower to make sure no other planes were in our vicinity, but as we were about to make our final turn towards the runway she craned her neck forwards and checked visually left and right. 'Just to make sure,' as she put it.

After that, it was Katy's turn. I knew that she would just 'get' how to fly and I was right. She spent most of her 30 minutes in control of the aircraft, so much so that after they landed Ruth said that if Katy took proper flying lessons then the half-hour just spent would count towards the flying hours necessary to qualify as a pilot.

Katy said that she felt it was like driving the equivalent of a sports car, which only needed slight movements of the joystick to respond. Another analogy was that it was like 'skiing in the air'. We both felt that it was a completely different experience to being an airline passenger in that we were 'connected' to the external environment - both air and land - rather than shut away from it.

All in all, the best experience we have had in the month we have been in New Zealand.

Richard