Dissecting the Edge
Outside Online writer, Stephanie Pearson, takes a month-long tour of NZ, in a bid to discover "why everyone wants a piece of the Kiwi magic." After interviewing a slew of overachievers, including Icebreaker's Jeremy Moon, Peter Jackson, and Adventure Philosophy co-founder Graham Charles, Pearson concludes that in NZ "resourcefulness starts at birth." "Kiwis are game to give virtually anything a go," she says, "whether it's perfecting a grape varietal, climbing Everest, or taking a two-year OE hiatus in their twenties to see how the rest of the planet lives. From sport and travel to business and culture, NZ's traditional strengths have been infused with 21st-century verve and advertised with a global reach ... But to boil the country's essence down to statistics would be like describing Manhattan solely in terms of the height and breadth of its skyscrapers. Factor in the triple play of the current zeitgeist - bungee jumping, Hollywood hobbits, and sauvignon blanc - and you've only accounted for half the spirit of NZ."
(1 September 2004) 
   

 

Bored? Zorb!
"Over the years, Kiwis apparently have become bored counting sheep and have amused themselves by coming up with some extreme sporting activities. They pioneered bungee jumping and zorbing (literally rolling down a hill strapped inside a ball). Also, Camel Active rates zorbing, a symbol of "the far-out and wild side of life"."
(6 March 2001)

Queenstown in world's ten best places for mountain biking
"Queenstown has a deserved reputation as the extreme sport's capital of the southern hemisphere, and the mountain biking is nothing short of crazy.  Gorgeous scenery that assaults the senses with waterfalls and snow-capped mountains."
(2 June 2000)
   

Stretching the limits 
Bungy pioneer AJ Hackett is to mark the 20th anniversary of his historic Eiffel Tower jump with a new world record attempt. In Kuala Lumpur later this year, the 48-year-old will leap from a helicopter attached to a cord capable of stretching 1.5km - nearly double the previous record of 700m. "Last December we opened the world's highest site in Macau. There we developed this new technology which is a tapered bungy cord, which is fatter at the top than it is at the bottom. It means you can stretch them a long, long way," he told Australia's ABC Radio. "We've had to get this technology happening to enable us to do some seriously big jumps we wanted to do - somewhere between one and two kilometre stretches." Hackett is currently in Australia promoting his new biography, Jump Start. 
(27 February 2007)

Miracle escape 
A NZ skydiver has survived a 3600m fall after his parachute became entangled. Michael Holmes, 25, filmed his fall with a helmet camera as he spiralled out of control over Lake Taupo. The video footage has since been screened all over the world. Holmes spent 11 days in hospital with a badly broken ankle and a punctured lung caused by snapped ribs. "Friends ask if I was scared but really I was just angry that I'd done everything exactly as I should and it hadn't worked," he says. "I remember everything. Nothing's a blur." Holmes hopes to resume skydiving in April. 
(13 February 2007)

Action packed Queenstown 
A self-confessed lazy New Yorker experiences adventure tourism NZ-style in Queenstown. The Skyline luge run is the highlight of a three-day trip which includes and air and sea tour of Milford Sound, skydiving and wine-tasting at the Wine Tastes Central Otago Wine Experience store. "We clinked our glasses and toasted Queenstown and thought of how we could return soon. Maybe I'll learn how to ski." 
(17 December 2006)

AJ Hackett: boucing tiger, dancing dragon
King of all things extreme, AJ Hackett, has led the first dragon dance walk across China's 233m high Macao Tower. Hackett and a Chinese bungy enthusiast each led a team of dancers around the outer rim of the tower aided by an overhead rail system, harnesses, and safety belts.
(1 August 2003)
   

Cold daring
What better guide through the frozen continent that "a New Zealander who, in younger days, had driven motorcycles across the ice pack and sampled the 80-year-old cocoa from the stores left in the hut of the doomed Scott expedition".
(10 March 2001)
    

Edge to travel TV
US Travel Channel radically overhauls its image with "a new TV spot showing skate kids mountain-boarding down a sheep-studded slope in New Zealand". "For the first time, the excitement and feel of a commercial really matched our programming,'' says Amy Troiano, director of on-air promotion for the Travel Channel. 
(24 June 2001)

Hold on to your Stetsons - fly-by-wire hits Texas
New Zealander Neil Harrap, developer of the fly-by-wire concept is bringing his innovative and heart-pounding flight simulation ride to Texas. With the right stuff - $75 - you can pilot a 24-horsepower open aircraft at heights of up to 140 ft and speeds of up to 75 mph.
(13 August 2000)

Thrills and spills in Testosterone City
"Fly is the epitome of the New Kiwi, chattier than the chattiest Aussie, more fashionable than the most fashionable Aspenite". Minty Church gets a personal introduction to the daredevil sports Mecca of Testosterone City, aka Queenstown, New Zealand.
(29 April 2000)

Snow must go on
If you’re itching for deep powder and big mountains there is no better place to visit between late June and mid October. Not only is NZ one of the most beautiful places in the world, it’s also a Mecca for those that want to continue skiing long after the snows in the Northern Hemisphere have melted.
(April 2000)

Windy farewell 
Paddy Gillooly owns a tourism company in New Zealand which takes visitors by jeep or all-terrain bus to the tip of the South Island's Farewell Spit, one of only two companies permitted the sandy, and windy trip. Some days it's like looking through a "curtain of sand" says Paddy. "Only a mechanic could do this job," he says. That's because his buses, which are continuously deluged by sand, salt water and mud, need constant care. Farewell Spit is a protected area and still growing and changing, mostly due to those strong winds. 
(4 March 2008)

Adventure sports in Aotearoa 
A Telegraph feature on NZ adventure tourism gives a comprehensive overview of the range of activities on offer. Tourist operators specialising in adventure sports have moved beyond Queenstown's borders and can now be found all over the country. The Telegraph guide includes sea kayaking at Cathedral Cove, heli-biking in Twizel, deep sea diving off White Island, caving in Waitomo and white-water rafting in Rotorua. 
(1 September 2007)

A day to get there, a lifetime to forget 
A Guardian travel feature on the South Island covers a remarkable range of quintessential Kiwi activities in just ten days. From extreme sports in Queenstown and the grandeur of the TranzAlpine Express, to eco-relaxation at Lake Moeraki's Wilderness Lodge and an idyllic hot air balloon ride over Christchurch, the writer's experiences had him "jabbering on to friends for weeks afterwards." 
(20 September 2006)

White knuckle Christmas
The Independent lists Queenstown as one of 25 top Christmas holiday destinations. “Work up an appetite for a festive roast lamb dinner by getting the adrenalin flowing among NZ's stunning mountain scenery … On any day of the year - except 25 December - you can take a jet-boat ride down the Shotover River, brave a 134-metre bungy jump, take a helicopter flight and do some white-water rafting.”
(25 September 2004)
    

Tops for jumps
Guardian netjetter Sam "takes advantage of New Zealand's position as tops for adrenaline holidays - he's just done a bungy jump."
(27 January 2001)

Jumped
A.J. Hackett - the edge entrepreneur and adrenaline junkie who took bungee from a bridge in Queenstown to the world - profiled as pioneering legend of 'American'(!) adventure sport in this month's Vanity Fair.
Pdf Copy 
(June 2001)

Peak inspiration 
In preparation for a race to the South Pole, adventurer Ben Fogle hits the South Island for some thrill-seeking training. "The country that staged the world's first commercial bungee jump has invented a whole world of extreme sports," Fogle writes. Inspired from helicopters, kayaks and whale-watching boats, his real challenge lies in the ascent of the 2,340m Double Cone, part of the Remarkables range. "At the final pinnacle, the cloud lifted and New Zealand revealed itself. Our peak was no Everest, but I felt exhilarated as I surveyed the view stretching before me. Maybe, just maybe, a little bit of its magic will have rubbed off on me and help me in my attempt to reach the South Pole later this year." 
(14 March 2008)

Hidden treasures and rugged escapades 
The London Times ran two travel articles on NZ last weekend. The first asked past and present All Blacks Richie McCaw, Anton Oliver, Reuben Thorne, Tana Umaga and Sean Fitzpatrick to "divulge their [country's] secret hot spots". These included the MacKenzie Basin (McCaw and Oliver), Kaiteriteri Beach (Thorne), Wellington's Cuba Street (Umaga) and Russell (Fitzpatrick). The second article was devoted to writer Mary Ann Sieghart's "adrenalin-fuelled family adventure", complete with sand dune tobogganing, bungee jumping, jet-boating and whale watching. "New Zealand is friendly, clean, English-speaking and efficient," writes Sieghart, "But it is by no means antiseptic. Risk and rugged escapades are the islands' signature." 
(3 November 2007)

White knuckle fun
NZ’s latest extreme sport – white water sledging – features in the Voice of America. “Instead of a raft, these ‘sledgers’ run the rapids with special flippers and a steerable buoyant board … River sledger Jacob Bradley says, ‘The feeling of the river, the force and the power of the river - it's quite addictive, something you thrive on.’”
(8 April 2005)
    
   

Edge adventuress
NZer Natalie McComb is the only woman in a crew of seven rafters aiming to sail the length of the Nile – a 4,200-mile journey from Uganda’s Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean which has never before been accomplished. The team includes Dr Ian Clarke, a specialist in tropical disease who will undertake research in previously unexplored areas, and photographer Daniel Prior, who will film the rafters’ search for the sunken battleship ‘Malik,’ sent by Lord Kitchener in 1898 to aid British forces during the Sudanese rebellion.
(19 January 2004)
   

Postcards from the Edge
"Dad," revealed the postcard from New Zealand, "went paragliding". All it takes is a break from routine.
(28 January 2001) 

Rock face
"New Zealand is one of the few places on earth where a novice can partake in the wild and woolly sport known as canyoning: an odd combination of hiking and rock climbing."
(12 March 2001)

Which way do I jump?
Queenstown - the capital of adventure, or, as this ambivalent adventurer puts it, "dumb stuff".
(11 February 2001)

Leia Skyjumper
Carrie Fisher on drugs, Thai food and going stratospheric: 'I was in New Zealand recently, on one of those bungee catapults, which I was far too old to go on, and just as we were about to be launched into the air, the 21-year-old girl sitting next to me said, "Aren't you Princess Leia?" and I was like, "Not now."'
(20 November 2000)