Well over a month ago we had tried, again and again, to fall, in a controlled fashion, from a plane. At every turn the weather cheated us. Shortly after I dropped off the Kawarau bridge, the idea seemed less appealing to me. Then, five days after Gaynor and I had parted at the Picton ferry terminal, I received a jubilant e-mail from her. The attached photo showed her about to plummet from a plane. My interest was rekindled and so it was that one warm day in Taupo, with only a smattering of clouds in the sky, I found myself in the waiting room of TTS - Taupo Tandem Skydive. The room was crowded with expectancy, silent frustration and fear.

"We've just gone on hold", explained Tracy, the efficient no-nonsense receptionist. So we waited. The skies looked fine but, high above, streams of air were racing against each other, tumbling into turbulence. Maybe, if we waited, they would slow and soothe. The minutes dragged on and on. A small group of people in blue jumpsuits were ushered quietly into the hanger. As the plane's engines whined into life and rumbled down the runway, we all half-hoped we'd be next.

Twenty minutes passed and my name was called. I stepped into a blue jumpsuit and strapped on a harness. We stood outside the hangar looking up. Parachutes and passengers swung down out of the sky like multicoloured leaves from an immense tree. Passengers were unhooked from their instructors and wandered past us, beaming.

"Hi, I'm Brett," said the man I was due to be bolted to. The plane made a u-turn and taxied round. We climbed aboard. This was no airliner, for one thing there were no seats. So we sat on the floor in this flying tin box. The door - a huge gaping hole in one side of the aircraft - was covered with the rattling perspex and steel shutter.

We thundered along the runway and, improbably, into the sky. In an airliner, even with a window seat, ascent is an oddly remote transition from the rich landscape of Down to the strange flat patchwork world of Up. This ascent was very clear through the large battered jangling door, and all the more strange for it. Both Down and Up felt a whole lot more close and real. We slowly wound a corkscrew in the air, gaining height above the clouds.

"We jump at 12,000 ft," shouted Brett in my ear whilst tapping his wrist altimeter. Clips and straps now bound us tighter. He began to shout instructions in my ear that seemed simple but I was sure would elude me once I was sitting on the edge looking out. It was a long, long way down.

The plane began to shudder a little more. There was an exchange of some sort between the instructors above the din. We hit 10,000ft and the cameraman began filming. "We're going down," shouted Brett. What? Too Early? I thought we were jumping at 12,000?

No, we were going down. In the plane. At almost the absolute last moment they had decided to call it off - it was just too windy. As we descended, curving gently down through the clouds, I felt an odd mixture of relief and disappointment. We landed, silently unharnessed and hung up our jump suits. Shook hands with our fellow non-jumpees and climbed back into the van for a lift back to town.

I tried twice more but the weather never got any better. Of course as I sit here, in Auckland, trying to tie up all the loose ends before I leave tomorrow, a fat high is perched over New Zealand. It is a bright blue sky dive of a day with not a whisper of wind. Still, as they say here, no worries, eh?