We have had another much needed restful day in beautiful Wanaka. I did get the kids moving quickly once they woke up as we wanted to visit Puzzling World before it got too busy. This amazing place is on the outskirts of Wanaka and started as a maze in the 70s but has grown to include all sorts of displays. We spent a good 3 ½ hours there exploring and enjoying.

To start with, you go through a room of holograms, some simple 3D representations, others with changing images. From there you go into the tilt room. This room is tilted to 15 degrees and made Colin and I feel quite sick. It messes with your balance and perception. They have a slight waterfall at -2 degrees but because the room is at 15 degrees, it looks like the water is climbing upwards. There was also a chair lift which was actually just a slight slide but looked like you were going upwards.

Next up were “Following Faces” which were concave sculptures of famous peoples’ faces. A wall each for each of the people: Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, van Gogh, Beethoven, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and Mother Theresa. Each wall had about 100 of these faces for each person. When you stood in the middle and moved around the faces looked like they were convex and following you.

From there you move into a room which looked normal when you stood on the outside and looked in, but inside is set up with sloping floor and ceiling such that two people standing in opposite corners look very different in height. They have a video going so you can check out how you looked after you have been in this room.

There were further individual art pieces with optical illusions both in 2D posters and 3D sculptures. Finally there was a 3D maze. I had never heard of a 3D maze and apparently it was one of the first of its kind. There are stairs, ramps and bridges to take you up over the standard maze corridors. The challenge was to find towers and the 4 corners of the maze. It was a very difficult maze and we all got a little frustrated after struggling to find the first two towers so took a much needed break and had morning tea. Afterwards the kids went back into the tilt room, and I went back into the maze and managed to find the way to the other two towers.

On our way home after the morning at Puzzling World, we found a couple of local op-shops to browse and found a few good bargains. Then back for a restful afternoon reading and a nap for me. After a lovely roast dinner (Colin had missed his roasts and this place is one of the few with an oven), we walked along the lake front to the “Lone Tree”. This tree is growing all by itself several metres from the shore, in the lake. I tried to work out how it came to be there but Google has no answers. Nevertheless it gave us a good destination for our walk.