Almost every town in New Zealand seems to harbour an airstrip or a helipad, and there is inevitably someone happy to get you airborne for half an hour's flightseeing . The best of these cross the truly spectacular mountain scenery of the Southern Alps or the ice-sculpted terrain of Fiordland, either from Fox Glacier, Franz Josef Glacier, Mount Cook, Wanaka or Queenstown. Half an hour in a plane will set you back around $100; helicopters cost around fifty percent more and can't cover the same distances but score on manoeuvrability and the chance to land. If money is tight, you could always take a regular flight to somewhere you want to go anyway. First choice here would have to be the journey from either Wanaka or Queenstown to Milford Sound, which overflies some of the very best of Fiordland.

In tandem skydiving , a kind of double harness links you to an instructor, who has control of the parachute. After suitable instruction, the plane circles up to around 2500m and you leap out together, experiencing around thirty seconds of eerie freefall before the instructor pulls the ripcord. Again the Southern Alps and Fiordland are popular jumping grounds, and Taupo seems to be establishing itself as a low-cost and reliable venue, charging as little as $165 a shot; elsewhere $180-200 is more common though you may get more personal attention.

A hill, a gentle breeze and substantial tourist presence and you've all the ingredients for tandem paragliding , where you and an instructor jointly launch off a hilltop, slung below a manoeuvrable parachute. For perhaps ten minutes of graceful gliding and stomach-churning banked turns, you pay a little over $100; Queenstown, Wanaka and Nelson are prime spots.