Stuart Landborough's Puzzling World!

This morning Katie and I walked down to Fergbaker (the bakery next to Fergburger) to snag some breakfast to-go so we could hit the road to the puzzling world at Wanaka. We took the scenic route over the mountain pass, which was both quicker and afforded us some beautiful views. This time, the signs were actually decent. I suppose they don't want people lost in the mountains slash plummeting to their deaths.

We stopped on the mountain on the way to the puzzling world for this view.

When we rounded the corner to the puzzling world, I got visibly excited. I love puzzles and illusions, and had been looking forward to this part of the trip the most! From the beginning, we were set up for a fun time. The park has a few optical illusions on the front lawn, with a huge maze set behind an unassuming building. Katie and I took a few photos out front, and then entered the main hall. The room was full of tables at which sat different types of mind-bending puzzles of varying difficulty. We purchased our entry tickets, played with a couple puzzles, and then entered the halls of illusion. There were different sections and types of illusions in various rooms, each designed to trick the mind in different ways. The first room had several 3D holographic prints hanging on the walls, which were interesting to look at. Following that, there was the tilted hall, a room where the water flowed upwards and a chair rolled up the wall! Because of the tilt of the room and the lack of windows, everything seemed to move against gravity's pull. It was pretty neat, if a bit headache-inducing.

The roman toilets!

THE WATER FLOWED UPWARD.

The MJ lean!

Past the tilted hall, we went into the world's only hall of following faces. There were several concave faces carved into the walls and backlit. Walking around the room, the faces appeared to be convex, and followed you around the room! It was really weird because it wasn't just the eyes that appeared to move, but the whole face! Pretty cool.

No escape.

After that, we went into a room that played with your perception of size. We got a couple to take our picture in exchange for taking theirs, and the results were pretty cool. One side of the room makes you look huge, and the other side makes you look pretty dang small, using forced perspective as the medium. After the FP room, we check out some optical illusion prints before heading to a room full of more optical illusions. It was very fun to see all the different types of structures and to try and wrap our heads around all the puzzles!

How does this happen?! 

Magic room is magic.

Have you ever seen infinity?

Even the bathrooms aren't safe!

Once we finished in the final optical illusion room, we headed out to the giant labyrinth. At the four extreme corners there were four towers of different colors, and the challenge was to either 1) find all four towers and the exit, or 2) find all four towers in a specific order and the exit. We decided to take on the hard challenge, feeling excited and confident in our abilities. Unfortunately, while we found the first tower pretty quickly, it was the wrong color. We also found the next two towers pretty fast, which were in the correct order, but we still had to find the first tower - the yellow tower. We searched and searched, and FINALLY made it to the yellow tower! We then made a deal with each other to go back to the first tower we found - green - and call it a day, figuring that if we did yellow-green we knew we could find the others and finish.

However.

Half an hour later, after walking in circles, we decided it was best to find the exit. I'm pretty sure that we'd have to run the whole thing backwards to get to green again, and neither of us wanted to put in that kind of time. I mean, come on! That's pretty sneaky, to make people run the whole maze to find the first tower, then run it backwards to run it forwards again for the difficult challenge. Well played, Stuart Landborough. Well played.

We each grabbed souvenirs from the puzzling world: I picked up a Hanayama puzzle (my first one!) and Katie got a set of stacking wooden carved kiwi figurines and a tea steeper. After the puzzling world, we decided to lunch in Wanaka at an Italian restaurant called Francesca's. We decided to sit inside, but were accosted a few times by an eager bee and moved tables. The food turned out to be very good, but throughout our meal we kept being bothered by several bees, which really challenged me to enjoy the experience. We ended up leaving slightly disappointed that we couldn't eat in peace. Oh well. Like I said, I enjoyed the food. My venison pizza was great, at any rate.

Following lunch, we drove back across the mountains, listening to more of Neverwhere. We decided to do some wine tasting, since Central Otago (the region we're in now) is known for their wineries. The first place we visited, Peregrine, was closed for a private event, so we continued on to Gibbston Valley Wines, a winery that also had a cheese factory by the same company next door. We did a quick tasting, then headed to try some cheese, which I thought was pretty good. They also had several types of honey, and a few not-very-hot hot sauces. After Gibbston, we went to the Gibbston Tavern, which is described as “exceedingly rustic” or something of that nature. It was a single-room saloon-like pub with one bartender and a limited liquor but decent beer selection. I tried their moonshine white, and Katie had one of their moonshine red wines. They actually weren't too bad!

Post-tavern, we visited Amisfield as our final winery for the day. When we pulled into the winery parking lot, we noticed something familiar: one of the statues from the Weta Cave Workshop was outside along with a counterpart! Our tour guide had mentioned that their statues stood outside a Central Otago winery, but didn't mention which one. We were so excited to find them! We took pictures before heading inside for some decent wines, but decided to pass on a purchase.

We stopped in the hotel momentarily for a complementary glass of wine before heading to the famed Fergburger for dinner. Instead of bringing the burgers back, we ate there, fortunately finding a place to sit despite the 20-person-deep line which was constantly refilling. I can understand why the place has so much hype; the burgers are big, and they're pretty tasty. I wouldn't say they're my favorite by any means, but if we lived here, I would definitely visit regularly.

Anyway, after dinner we grabbed our swimsuits and hopped in the car to head to our onsen appointment. The onsen was just a few kilometers outside of town, so it wasn't hard to find. We walked down a few flights of stairs in a hillside to get to the main office. Checking in, our host prepared champagne and other items for our 1.5 hour soak session, and we were ushered into a room with 40 “lit” electronic candles. We had several buttons to control the jets and lights, as well as to open the garage door between us and the outside. We opened the door, and stared at the stars for a while, eating ice cream and drinking bubbles while soaking in a delightful onsen. It was breathtaking. Everyone should do that at least once in their life.

After the onsen, we returned to the hotel room to try and catch the end of the cricket match between Australia and India, only to find that they were nowhere near finishing. Tuckered out after a big day, Katie turned in shortly thereafter. I'm not too far behind myself.

Tomorrow we're off to Dunedin to do some antique shopping and to find me some accessories for my kilt! I'm pretty excited about that. Also, we're staying in a converted chapel, which is most exciting. I look forward to enjoying the Scottish city of the South Island!