Wanaka was a major stop on the way. Here we did some initial shopping for supplies for our upcoming 4 day hike – or at least looked at the seemingly exorbitant prices, and then headed to Puzzle World.
What we figured would be a glorified kids playground turned out to be a quite cool and interesting place – especially for nerds like us, but I’d say there’s something amusing there for most people.
From the room where hundreds of faces on all the walls follow you as you walk around the room (their whole facts, not just the eyes), to the holograph room, to the slant room where you can sit of a chair and ride it uphill, it’s all a bit of fun. There’s also a large maze, where the idea is to go from the start to all four corners and then find your way back to the start again. Steve and I stuck together as Bryce was taking it fairly seriously. Soon though we were feeling competitive and we ended up getting around quickly, even beating Bryce. We were all good natured about it, but I’m sure there are people who get quite worked up. Unfortunately we didn’t see any biff.

After the mandatory tourist-holding-up-the-building-on-a-40-degree-lean photo we resumed the trail to Queenstown. All of our driving took second place to stopping for gorgeous countryside. At any random intervals along our journey we could be found driving down a beaten off-road track to put our feet in the turquoise translucent water of a glacial river, and goo-gooing at the surrounding mountainous scenery. I think this played a large part in how much we enjoyed this beautiful land.