I’m going on an assignment in New Zealand that includes me taking a 43m plunge off a bridge – perfect for a guy who’s afraid of heights and hates roller coasters.

My assignment this time around is to tag a bunch of young people who won the Nestle Drumstick LIVE THE MAORI EXPERIENCE competition, and their prize is a totally insane week-long adventure holiday in New Zealand.

We’re talking not just bungy jumping, but jet boat rides, black water rafting, monster 4×4 truck rides and a whole lot more. It is going to be one helluva trip. I can’t imagine how excited the 24 winners must be. I’m going there for work and I’m still excited!

Our journey begins tomorrow, when we fly off to Christchurch. We’ll be moving on to Queenstown, Rotorua and finally to Auckland. The other stuff on the itinerary includes visits to a Maori village, the Waitomo glow worm cave, the Te Whakarewarewa geothermal reserve, and a couple of farms.

The tough part for me, however, is the bungy jumping bit. I kid you not – I am really bad at all this thrill ride stuff, and I don’t like them one bit, which obviously has annoyed the crap out of my friends who are demanding I let them go in my place.

I guess I’m just more of the sheep-shearing, Haka dance-learning, scenery-loving, Lord of the Rings tour kinda guy.

But the whole spirit of the competition was about adventure, and daring to do something out of the ordinary, so I’ve been trying to psyche myself up over the last few days to just go with it, and see how far my sense of adventure can bring me.

I’m pretty determined to do the jump right now, but who knows? I mean, none of us HAVE to do it. Plus I heard that a lot of people chicken out once they get on that ledge – I wouldn’t be surprised if I was one of ’em.

The worst thing is, I tried google-ing “bungy jumping”, and the second highest suggested search entry was “bungy jumping accidents”.

And look what I found under that search: an article with the assuring headline “Briton hits water at 80mph after elastic cord flies loose”, and an accompanying video of Rishi Baveja smacking into the water and what appears to be a bungy operator going “Oh” when he realised what had happened.

Then again, that was in Thailand (no offense to all our Thai friends out there). The one I’m going for is the original bungy, the first ever in the world, off Kawarau bridge, so I’m pretty sure it’s safe.

I’ll try my best to update this blog (and our Twitter @thestar_rage) with a few photos while I’m there. But don’t worry, you’ll definitely hear about it if I actually make the jump.

And if I don’t, you’ll still see some nice photos of me shearing sheep or doing the Haka.