It turned out to be too windy for skydiving though so we booked in for the following day and tried to hire kayaks. This was a no go an all, they weren't letting anyone go too far out again on account of the wind and paying for a kayak to paddle it round in small circles for an hour didn't sound like fun. So yeah, as stunning as it is there's sod all to do when its windy. We headed to possibly the only source of indoor entertainment to kill some time; Puzzling World.

Puzzling world is actually quite cool. They have like four illusion rooms, the first is full of holograms then you walk into another room covered in giant, concave faces that look like they're moving to watch you walk around the room (complete with creepy creaking noises). Next you check out this bizarre room that looks totally normal as you look into it but the ceiling is higher on one side creating giants on one side and midgets on the other.

Big Little Sister

Always Knew I Should Have Been Taller

The fourth room just fucks with you. The whole thing is on a slant but everything in the room is either truely level or very slightly slanted truely downwards but because your perception is messed with it looks like, for example, the ball on the snooker table rolls up hill. They also have water that looks like its running uphill and a chair you can sit on that, again, looks like you're sliding uphill. It seriously messes with your head.

Faces That Follow You Around The Room

The Most Fucked Up Room Ever!

And then there's the maze. The aim is to find your way to each of the four corner towers then out again which given my proven ability to get lost on a straight road really wasn't going to appeal to me. I followed Nat and Shane around while we found the towers but my attention span didn't allow for finding the way out. Neither did Nat's but it has escape doors so we cheated and waited for Shane while he finished solving it. And fair play to him, he did it. I'll just bask in his sense of acheivement methinks, you'll not catch me setting foot in any bloody mazes again for a while without a detailed map. Oh, and someone with the ability to read detailed maps.

So yeah, a pretty uneventful day on account of the total lack of Stuff To Do apart from drink tea and solve mazes and its not advisable to combine these two activites on account of the lack of toilets in the maze and the fact that the nearest facilities are located on the other side of a wall that you can't find the door to. We headed to our camp for the night and hoped the weather would pick up for our jumping out of plane related shenanigans the next day.

written by  Koala Bear on February 9, 2009 from Wanaka, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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puzzling world sounds awesome, actually! i'll have to check that out if I make it to wanaka! it would be nice to balance some of the more outdoorsy stuff in wanaka with this more chill yet psychologically stimulating experience. thanks for the tip!

written by  gertrudeyoung58 on March 9, 2009

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