“How do you like your job?” I ask Dave, the puckish operator of HiFlyer, the helium balloon that will imminently be toting me skyward. I am standing in the contraption’s metal basket amid the verdant grounds of Leeds Castle in Kent, dreading my impending ascent. Dave replies with a wry smile, “It has its ups and downs.”

I can’t laugh, and it’s all I can do to refrain from digging my fingernails into his arm in fear as he adjusts a crank and we lurch towards the heavens. I don’t suffer from vertigo, but there is something unnerving about the fact that the only thing keeping me aloft is a distant cousin of your ordinary, very pop-able, birthday balloon.

Dave, ever the comedian, attempts to demonstrate the safety of our conveyance by jumping up and down with vigour. I am not amused.

For my first balloon expedition, I am glad I decided to board HiFlyer. It’s the country’s first tethered balloon ride and ideal for those among us for whom the unfettered freedom of the balloon seems a terrifying opportunity to see Murphy’s Law put into practice - 25 times a day, a basket capable of containing up to 30 people is towed 400 metres into the air by a helium balloon, tethered to the ground all the time by a steel rope capable of holding – according to Dave’s employers – ten times the pull that the balloon itself exerts.

A trip on the HiFlyer lasts 15 minutes and at £14 for adults and £8 for children, it’s an affordable taster of what ballooning, which can cost upwards of £150 for the real thing, is like.

As we climb upwards, I relax a bit, and scan the horizon. Leeds Castle becomes dollhouse sized; the River Len and ribbons of highway begin to diminish. It’s a foggy day, but Dave tells me that on a clear day you can almost make out Dover.

I’m pretty sure that’s fantastical, but the surreal experience of being cloud-high, completely silent, with the castle’s strutting peacocks pea-sized beneath us makes me want to believe; it’s magic. Tethered by strong steel, I am feel I am midway between the security of the London Eye, and the freedom of a bird. By the time we reach the apex of the rope, I want to cut the cord and soar.

Hot air ballooning, the idyllic, blissful, free-floating mode of transport, is not for the faint of heart. No, seriously. While the contraption may conjure images of childhood birthday parties and dippy clowns, ballooning is not as innocuous an activity as it looks.

For one, there’s no steering. Thousands of metres above the surface of the earth, your ship is at the mercy of the winds; bandied about by gusts, you never know where you will land. Speaking of landing, there are no brakes. The ground, yes, the unforgiving earth, will be what stops you and your wicker basket. Perhaps that’s why every landing is accompanied by a traditional toasting of a glass of champagne. You may need it to steady your nerves.

Indeed, at first glance, not much seems to have changed since the hot air balloon’s auspicious debut in 1783 at Versailles in front of King Louise XIV and Marie Antoinette. In their regal gaze, the first hot air balloon carried a duck, a rooster and a sheep for eight minutes before hurtling them roughly to the ground. Rest assured, nowadays it’s among the safest means of air conveyance, though abandoning yourself to the whims of the wind is for some, a mental hurdle.

There have been some significant improvements and measures taken to make ballooning into the idyll it should be. For one, flammable hydrogen is no longer used in pleasure balloons so there are no Hindenburg worries.

Inflammable helium in a gas balloon or hot air will provide your lift. Your pilot is required to study the craft extensively and undergo several hundred hours of practical work and flight time before obtaining the mandatory Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certification.

Times recommends

• Your Top 10 questions on low cost airlines
• How to hen party in style
• Steaming into Bangladesh