At 18, I watched more than half my friends turn tail and abscond to foreign shores for the must-do, post- A-level Gap year. At my school, there was an unspoken mantra that if you were going to be a success in life, unless you were heading straight for Oxbridge, going abroad was key to all round Good Egg-ness.

But it wasn’t something that interested me in the slightest. All I wanted to do was to spend a few years in higher education and get a job. But fast forward 14 years later and there I was, on board Singapore Airlines flight SQ321, bound for New Zealand, later Australia.

I’d left my full-time job, arranged for someone to cat/house-sit and booked my tickets. And all in a matter off six weeks, after the idea just popped into my head one Sunday afternoon and I couldn’t think of a single reason not to do it.

My plan was simple: to take stock of life, the universe and everything in between. The first step on this intrepid journey was to break the habit of a lifetime by planning nothing save the bare essentials. Having no cast iron itinerary was liberating in itself, but as any traveller will tell you, plans in this kind of scenario are pretty pointless, as they invariably get changed.

For example, I had arranged to stay with a friend in a coastal suburb of Sydney, but being as I didn’t fancy sleeping on a beanbag on the lounge floor indefinitely, I had to have a rethink. As luck would have it, I’d got on really well with the girl I sat next to on the Auckland to Sydney flight, bonding over a few too many bottles of Jacob’s Creek. She did away with her plans to leave Sydney after a week and after five weeks, we moved into a tiny flat in every Briton’s home from home, Bondi Beach.

Looking at that scenario as an outsider, you’d probably think I was mad - in normal circumstances, renting a flat with someone you’d spent a couple of days with would have you heading straight for the loony bin, but it’s par for the course when you’re 12,000 miles away from home.

But 10.30am, August 26, in Auckland, is where my adventure began. I didn’t feel like I’d just travelled half way round the globe, but that’s probably because I’d been asleep for most of it, courtesy of two doses of Tamezepam (enclosed spaces are not my thing and especially not for 23 hours). Apart from leaving my passport and flight tickets on the back of a toilet cistern in Singapore airport at the half-way mark (and consequently being bing-bonged over the Tannoy for half an hour until I realised) the journey was pretty uneventful.

It’s weird when you’ve been on a plane for that long and you alight to find that it’s not all that different to what you left. You can get on a plane at East Midlands and get off it in a couple of hours and people are talking a different language and the weather’s nice, but New Zealand was comfortingly familiar – it’s cold and green and it rains quite a lot. It was August, and, as one of the winter months in the southern hemisphere, it was cold, although, like every other visitor from Blighty, I refused to believe it until I experienced it for myself and ended up wearing all my summery clothes at once for a lot of the time, as well as two cardigans and a dressing gown borrowed from my host.

During that first month there, staying with one of my school friends and her family, the best part was a week in the south island’s ski central, Queenstown.The scenery is beyond description – dramatic glacial formations, gaping valleys and imposing mountain ranges. Just like anywhere, the snowboarders are completely unhinged, but unlike mainland Europe, there are no red runs - just green, blue and black. Bridget Jones eat your heart out.

Queenstown symbolises all that’s best about New Zealand, which goes way beyond the stunning geography. The area surrounding Queenstown could be just about any scene from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as most of this area appeared in at least one of the films. If you’re the outdoorsy type, this place is heaven on earth, but if you’re not, you soon will be. I decided that dicing with death strapped to a pair of carvers was not enough, so I got myself strapped to a skydiver and jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet as well.

It was a decision I kind of fell into, a bit like one of those semi-drunken bets you’ll never have to execute. The only two differences were that a) I was sub-zero sober when I agreed to it and b) that I ended up doing it. I thought I was safe because the winds had been so high that there had been no skydiving for days – that way, I could volunteer and if it got cancelled, there was no way I could be accused of lily-liveredness.

But when I rang for the 7am weather check and was given the green light, my complexion immediately responded with a colour to match. In hindsight, it’s an experience which taught me the ultimate meaning of faith - how to trust someone I’d known for an even shorter time than my future flat mate, and with a stake far higher than whether the washing up would get done or not. Jokingly, I asked one of my tandem diver’s colleagues if he was a happy sort of chap. They just said “Oh, certainly. A laugh a minute. Doesn’t know a thing about skydiving, though.” Gulp.

The scariest things are these: 1) you have no way of knowing if you are properly attached to your instructor until you are in mid-air, 2) the terrifying sensation of falling at about 140mph, 15,000 feet above the ground, surrounded by huge mountains and lakes, and, eventually, patchwork fields and cotton wool sheep, 3) waiting for the ‘chute to open.

Needless to say, I shan’t be appearing on NZone’s next promotional tourism video. My prized DVD captures my landing, then my post-dive interview, which goes: Cameraman: “Hey George, how was that?” Me: “I think I’m going to be sick,” I then stagger off view, promptly carrying out my threat over a nearby verandah.

I got dropped off back at my hotel, with a sick bag wedged between my knees for the duration of the journey. Something of a lifetime record, it took me five hours to regain the power of speech. But, perverse though it may seem, I’m thrilled to say I’ve done it.