I thought I should just own up to that right off the bat. Nothing gives me jelly legs quite like standing near the edge of something I can legitimately fall off. It freaks me out. I shake, I lock up, I turn a bit green, I get unusually quiet.

As such, the first thing I decide to do in Queenstown is the Canyon Swing. I am of the firm belief that if I'm afraid of something, I should tackle it head-on. I had something else booked for today, but due to dodgy weather it was postponed for another day. So with many hours to fill, I went in search of adrenalin. There are a couple of things around Queenstown that take claim to being the biggest something or highest something in the world. This is one of them. "The World's Highest Cliff Jump".

Yes. Cliff. Jump. As in off. I'm afraid of heights. The guy that picked up the group I booked into was French. His name is Julien and he has that whole morbid sense of humour thing nailed. "Don't worry guys, you're perfectly safe. We've bin running zis for twelve years, and no one haz bin seriously injured or killed for at least a few weeks." And on it went.

Because I had my GoPro and attachments to set up, everyone else went ahead of me so I had plenty of time to work on my nervous breakdown. Once they had that full body harness on me it all started to feel very real. Not to mention, all the people going ahead of me weren't making much noise at all. Were they perhaps plunging to their deaths? This was not the case as they all reappeared looking utterly unfazed. Clearly I'm just a p**** and freaking out for nothing.

The Canyon Swing allows you to jump in a whole manner of creative ways. You can do the cutaway, which is just sit down and they'll lift you out and drop you. Easiest. You can go off the edge down a slippery slide, hang by your feet and drop, run and jump off, have a garbage bin over your head and be pushed off, ride a kid's tricycle over the edge, sit in a chair and be tipped over backwards, jump off backwards, somersault out, it's really up to you how mad you want to be. Given I knew my legs would simply stop working once I got near the edge, I went for the cutaway. No effort required except to sit there and scream. On the official underpants scale used at the Canyon Swing, the cutaway is just one underpants.

So with GoPro strapped to my million dollar "Wizmount" harness I had on over my swing harness, they dragged me out to the edge. It's funny watching the video now because it is so clear to me that my legs weren't working properly. I had this kind of stiff gait going on. They trash talked me a bit, got me laughing, sat me down, levered me out over the canyon and SWEET HOLY HELL THAT'S A LONG WAY DOWN!!!!!!

Let's pause to examine the specs. It's a 109m high platform. You DROP in free-fall for 60m before you even start to swing. That's three seconds of dropping. As the reassuring French git said, "You vill drop for three seconds. If you drop for longer, somesing vent wrong but you von't have much time to sink about it." Like I said; git. You then swing OUT for 200m at a speed of around 150km/hr. Just for comparison's sake, the Millennium Force rollercoaster at Cedar Point went that fast. It's pretty freaking fast.

They get you to wave at the cameras, and smile, and pretty much mid sentence while they're ragging on someone for their kiwi accent, the literally pull the pin and drop you. I think I had nearly dropped all the way into the 60m free fall before it hit me that I was falling. It. Happens. So. Fast. But what a freaking rush!!!!!!!!!!

I was winched back up quite quickly, which is nice because it was actually cold and raining while I'm doing this intelligent thing I'm doing. There is much cheering and love on arrival back at the platform. I am suddenly incredibly aware of the firm ground beneath my feet and feel unusual levels of gratitude towards it. The guys ask me if I want to jump again. I said, yes, I would like to jump again. One of the other guys working there (a Brazilian git, this one) says, "Vell, if you jump again, you have to actually jump off yourself, zis time."

Uh huh.

Yeah, that'll happen. I'm still scared of heights, boys!! Just because I didn't cry and scream and blub doesn't mean I'm ready to swan out over the edge under my own steam casually twirling a cane!!!

But they ragged and ragged on me and talked me up. Before I know it, I'm being shoved back past the big painted red line on the floor. And looking back over the video footage now, the difference in me is quite extreme. I'm actually green. Which is a real accomplishment in a bright purple jacket. There were lots of deep breaths and because they realised I was genuinely frightened, they didn't muck around or joke or do any dummy drops, like they did with a couple of other people. I'd have swung around and punched them if they had dummy dropped me. Or wanted to punch them. My muscles probably wouldn't have done a single thing I asked them to.

There had been considerable debate about which way I should actually leave the platform. I had previously watched one of the other guys do the "run forward and somersault backwards" move and while it looked way cool and would've been an awesome rush, I knew my jelly-legs probably wouldn't give me the power I needed to clear the platform and not smack my skull on it as I plunged. The guys had suggested just jumping out but the whole "looking down and discovering new swear words" thing told me I would suck at that also. In the end I opted to jump off the platform BACKWARDS.

On the official underpants scale used at the Canyon Swing, the backwards jump is FIVE underpants. That's maximum underpants. It doesn't get more underpanty than that.

I was scared. Truly scared. At that point, almost too scared to even get the shakes. The guys inched me around very carefully and uttered the dreaded words "Stand with your heels on the edge of the platform." ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND?!?!!! AT LEAST HOLD MY FREAKING HAND!!!!! They gripped me firmly by the jacket for this bit and I hung onto their arms in something like a death grip. They are probably still waiting for my claw marks to fade. They talked me very calmly through exactly what I needed to do to execute this jump without whipping my body, and more importantly, my still busted shoulder. The instructions were to fall backwards and when they yelled 'Jump!' I was to kick away from the platform. This would keep my body flat and level, and not drop me vertically but rather, horizontally.

To my eternal PRIDE I did it on the first go without even flinching. And just to amp up the cool factor, on the video, I have the biggest grin on my face as I do it. GO ME!!!

There is nothing else left to say about today. It was awesome. And here I am as proof that you can be deathly afraid of heights and still do these mad things. There were hugs all around when I got back to the platform after that one.

There is video of ALL this. And it's AWESOME. Unfortunately on hotel wifi it is loading at a snail's pace of around four hours but hang in there. Once it's loaded, I'll share it. And trust me, you WANT to see it. :-D

I think the rest of my day will involve the hot tub and Fergburger. I've earned it.