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New Zealanders have become famous for their willingness to jump off bridges, speed down shallow rivers, or roll down hills inside inflatable balls. They’re happy to help others do the same, too, and have introduced new heart-pumping sports to the world – but they do it safely. Every week thousands of visitors experience the heady euphoric feeling of an adrenaline rush.

Some New Zealanders are addicted to adrenaline. It’s the best legal drug you can get, but like any drug you have to get more of it in different forms. So adventure addicts now consider bungee-jumping ‘boring’ – abseiling and kite-surfing are currently their ways to get a high. Another favourite thrill is jetboat rides down river gorges, travelling at breakneck speeds perilously close to the rocky banks.

The industry is strongly regulated and the operators highly trained. They’ve all been to the same charm school and so delight in making any activity seem more dangerous than it really is. They reason that the higher you think the risk is, the higher the adrenaline rush when you ‘miraculously’ survive the experience.

Should you ask your parachute jump partner how long he’s been doing tandem jumps, he’ll tell you that today is his first time with a paying customer. Stand on a bridge and ask how many jumps a bungee rope is used for before it’s retired, and you’ll be told ‘100, and yours is the 99th’. Such tricks are simple but extremely effective. In fact, the adventure sports industry in New Zealand has a remarkably good safety record.

Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained why New Zealanders are so successful at dreaming up new adventure activities. It must be a combination of the beautiful outdoors and their isolation from the rest of the world. They have to get their kicks at home and they will try anything once. If it works, they will develop it for their visitors’ fun and enjoyment.

Glacier walking on what appears to be a living, moving, creaking, mountain of ice is awe inspiring. You may be roped up to your guide in case you slip and fall down a crevasse.

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Zorbing your way down the hill

Zorbing is the epitome of New Zealanders’ love of the bizarre. An NZ Air Force pilot described zorbing as ‘the same sensation as spinning loops and barrel rolls and then crashing to the ground in a jet. Only in a Zorb it doesn’t hurt.’ Lesser mortals say it’s like ‘being inside a tumble drier’.

The Zorb is actually two spheres, one suspended inside the inflated outer one. The view from inside is a tumbling blur of blue sky and green grass which eventually seems to blend into one as you bounce and fall and roll down a hillside. Aficionados throw a bucket of water in first (it’s called a Zydro Ride) just to remove any chance that they can cling to the sides. To take it to the next level you can try the Zig-Zag track, a cross between a waterfall and roller coaster.

Like many adventure sports, it’s almost as much fun to watch as to participate. It starts with mirth as a vacuum cleaner working in reverse is used to pump up the Zorb, and finishes with hilarity as the dizzy participant tries to climb out of the sphere.

Zorbing is probably the safest of all the adventure sports. Like all of them, there is no logical reason to do it. The late Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand’s most-loved adventure sportsman, probably climbed Everest in 1953 for the same reason as today’s adrenaline seekers: because it’s there.