Sheeran said bungy jumping was the scariest thing he did.
"I was in Queenstown and they said should we go on a bungy jump and I was like, I guess when in Rome, but I'm terrified of heights ... for the next month I just had dreams of falling."
The singer braved his fear, adding that the operators of the bungy joked with him, pretending to push him over the edge.
"The thing is the guys that do it are like 17, 18 and they mess with you a little bit."
The British pop star also managed to squeeze in a visit to Sir Peter Jackson's World War I planes at Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim.
"Peter Jackson, the guy who does the Lord of the Rings films, he collects World War I planes, and he strapped me to the front of one standing up and flew me around.
"He's got a load of them. He's got a museum that has them all in it. That was in May or June."
Sheeran said he was flown strapped to the front of the one-seater plane around the air base.
The 25-year-old's adventures didn't end there.
His gap year also included swimming with bull sharks, whitewater rafting in Fiji, and burning his foot "in a boiling geyser in Iceland."
His BBC interview followed the release of his two new singles, Castle on the Hill and Shape of You.