Twisty roads hacked into canyon walls lead us into Queenstown. Lord of the Rings type scenery. Lots of tors and vales and mountains.

This little huddle of smart buildings on the shores of Lake Wakatipu was once a tiny farming town until two yokels discovered gold in the Shotover River in 1856. Experienced and novice prospectors from Australia and China descended en masse, mining the place dry within 40 years. After that, Queenstown was left for dead until its two very ski-able mountain ranges and gorgeous lake facilitated a reincarnation in the 1950s as a tourist mecca. This reputation as a Destination was then turbo-charged in the 90s as aggressive geography and the lax Kiwi safety regulations enabled it to become the self-proclaimed Extreme Sports Capital of the World.

We arrived in Queenstown late in the afternoon after a long drive from Dunedin. Like Methven, being in Queenstown brings back lots of memories from my snowboarding holiday with Axit, Ed and Will. I'm sure I bored Sarah stupid with an unprompted tour of the town centre: '...and this is Winnie's where I wore my potted plant fancy dress outfit and some guy tried to piss on me', 'That's the Southern Laughter where we drank sake in the hot tub and Axit threw up in a bin', 'Over there is the Subway where Will used to order double-meat foot-longs after a hard day at the Remarks'. 'This is the spot where I nearly drove Ed and myself into a bus'. It was good to be back.

Before the shops shut that evening we were able to hire snowboarding gear and lift tickets for the following day at The Remarkables ski resort. (Opinion is divided as to whether this name is due to the fact that the mountains simply look 'remarkable' or whether they are more scientifically named as remarkable as they are one of only two mountain ranges in the world that run directly north-south. Having met a number of Kiwis, my money's on the former reason). As we only had one day in our itinerary to get up the mountain, I persuaded Sarah to try snowboarding for the day. I dredged up all the lessons I remembered from when I learned and barraged Sarah with them all at once: 'Pretend you're sitting on a toilet', 'Do less', 'Imagine you're carrying a tea tray', 'Look as cool as possible'. Despite all this good advice Sarah did incredibly well, and by the end of the day was casually swooping back and forth down the mountain.

To celebrate her achievement, I suggested that we sit on our boards and toboggan down the last 20 metres to car park where the bus was waiting to pick us up and drive us back to Queenstown. I reached the bottom before Sarah, and as I turned to watch her coast the last few metres and get ready to dish out the hi-fives, she held up a right hand, dripping with blood.

In the doctor's in Queenstown we learned that she had when she caught her thumb under the board edge she had sliced completely through her skin and right down to the joint capsule, just missing the tendons. We also learned that I'll be of absolutely no use during child-birth as I nearly passed out – twice – whilst she had a couple of stitches put in.

The upside of the whole experience for Sarah, aside from discovering a natural snowboarding (but not tobogganing) ability, is that her stitches prevent her from doing any cooking or washing up for the remainder of the trip.