Birthday fun: Part Three - Snow and pizza

After our balloon flight, we warmed up back at our hostel with a bowl of hot chilli. Amy then thrust a giant birthday card into my hands, featuring a picture of a very cute Syrian hamster holding a birthday cake - full of birthday greetings from friends back in London.

We headed up to Coronet Peak for an evening of sunset/night time snowboarding where we both managed a few exhilarating rides down from the very top of peak - an achievement that was particularly pleasing as that was our big target from the start. Then, we headed into town for a late dinner of pizza, beer, wine, sambucca and drunken dancing. We treated Queenstown to our singing as we walked home in the tiny hours and finally collapsed into bed.

Amy's hard work for my special day made me realise that obviously, I'll have as much fun in my 30s as my 20s and that after all, it is just a number.

Birthday fun: Part Two - at 12,000 feet

After the gig we drove back to Queenstown (Amy kindly abstained from drinking) and flopped into bed at around 2am. At 6.30am I was rudely awoken by Amy turning on the lights and jumping on me as she threw balloons all over the room. "Get up! Get dressed! We're going" she said.

"Wha...what!? It's still dark. What time is it? Where are we going?" I groggily replied.

"Just get dressed!" she said with an excited grin on her face. "And wear something warm". I panicked. She'd booked something but I didn't know what. With it's reputation for extreme activities, a surprise like this in Queenstown could mean one of two things: bungy jumping or sky diving, neither of which I fancied.

Wrapped in warm clothes, Amy bundled me into a minibus after telling the driver and all the other passengers that they were not allowed to talk about what we were about to do. We drove out of town towards the airport and my stomach felt like it had puking butterflies in it. "Oh no, not this" I thought. I was convinced that she was about to throw me out of an airplane.

Finally we arrived at a field where there seemed to be a big parachute lying on the floor. Confused about where the plane was, I discovered that to my relief, Amy hadn't planned to send me hurtling towards the ground, but rather, we were about to ride in a hot air balloon.

Hugh, our balloon pilot, welcomed us and we watched as he filled the massive balloon with air with the aid of some very noisy fans. He invited us to climb into the large wicker basket and before we could even wonder how it would fly, we had launched into the crisp morning air. We ascended above the mountains to over 12,000 ft (which Hugh admitted was probably the highest he'd ever been in a balloon) and in silence we all looked over the cloudless scene before us. Snow-capped mountains stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see, peppered with lakes.

We threw some paper airplanes from the balloon as Hugh pointed out the sights below us and in the distance. I'll let these pictures tell the rest of the story from up there.

We had a very gentle landing in a field with two curious horses (who tried to eat the balloon as it was packed away). After a champagne breakfast, Hugh lined us up and by blessing our foreheads with champagne announced that we were now 'balloonatics".

Birthday fun: Part One - Recloose

It was a bit of a landmark day for me yesterday - my 30th birthday. 'It's just a number' they say. I'll spare you the rest of the mental anguish that I put myself through as I said goodbye to my 20s and just give you a bit of insight into how I celebrated my big day.

On the eve of my birthday (the 22nd) we were in a small town called Wanaka where rather bizarely, one of my favourite DJs was playing (a New Zealander called Recloose who wrote a track called 'Dust' which I often play in my DJ sets). Back home in London, Recloose fills major live music venues, but in his home territory he was playing at a cheesy pub in a town with only 3,000 residents. Despite the humble setting, he played a fantastic funk/disco set and at midnight he picked up the microphone and announced to the whole venue that it was my birthday. This was how I entered my 30s.

We should just get jobs in a zoo

We were told about a place perched up on a hill called Deer Park Heights, where you can drive through in your car stopping off to feed various animals on the way. The winding roads climb higher and higher as you go, with fantastic views across Queenstown and surrounding areas.

We befriended goats, donkeys, pigs, llamas and a few brave deer. They only wanted to be our friends because we had a big tin of animal feed, but we enjoyed their affections anyway. You'd think they'd never seen food before, the way they react when they see you - check out these donkeys! And I was chased by a llama when he realised I'd left him for a friendly looking doe.

Horsing around

As we're planning on doing a lengthy horse trek while we're in South America I decided it might be wise to actually get a wee practise run in first. Although once an experienced rider, I haven't actually been on a horse in about 8 years, and Adrian thinks he may have been on one once. So. Off we went to a tiny village called Glenorchy, and once there we were introduced to our steeds for the afternoon.

Adrian was lucky enough to be given Harry to ride, a filmstar, no less! Harry starred in two of the three Lord of the Rings movies. My horse, Little Red, was not famous but was lovely nevertheless. We spent nearly three hours on horseback riding through a valley and across the Rees River. The scenery was stunning and the ride was great fun.

The trickiest puzzle known to man: snow chains

We had never really driven in snow or icy conditions before. So when we were told that we would need to use snow chains to drive up mountains we thought 'brilliant! We'll attach some chains to the front of our car and sit back and be pulled up!' - how very wrong we were...

This is how they work: When you're driving up a mountain and it starts to snow and there's ice on the road, you have to get out of your car and into the freezing blizzard to wrap chains around your car tyres. But the problem is that the chains are really short and you have to pull really hard to link them up on the outside and the inside of the tyres. It takes about 20 attempts for each tyre, so after around 30 minutes of shunting the car backwards and forwards while trying to attach these things while your shoes are freezing and soaking wet and your fingers are numb, we finally got them on and drove off cursing the person who designed them (who I'm told by one local lady 'must have been a man'). You can see them in place on our lovely rental car above.

There's no business like snow business

One of the main reasons for our visit to New Zealand were the mountains. Particularly the snowy mountains, which when combined with a snowboard, a willingness to take a few knocks and bumps and some very warm clothing, make for great fun.

We've had about five days and nights on the slopes at two different ski resorts: Coronet Peak and Cardrona. These sites were witness to plenty of exhilarating cries of 'weeeeee!" as well as some less-exhilarating and painful expletives.

Conditions ranged from delightfully sunny (we both have pink noses) with thick powder snow through to freezing blizzards with hard ice, zero visibility and strong winds. But when it was clear, we were treated to stunning clear views of surrounding mountains.

We went from being beginners through to being able to whizz down both Green (beginner) and Blue (intermediate) slopes (some of these colours from the slope coding system must have rubbed off on us as we've ended up with green and blue bits all over our thighs). But, by the end of our final night, we had both managed to ride all the way from the top of the mountain without killing ourselves or those around us.