Manuka Crescent Motel Wanaka

Woke up to a totally clouded sky, but when we got to lake matheson is cleard briefly.Got a great view of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook for a short time. Hiked around the lake and got sporadic views of the hills and a few nice reflection views before the wind picked up. Drove into town and called future shop, should be able to get my ...

... the closer we got to our rural destination that this was not going to be possible, with no internet access and no phone signal!

However on arriving at the lake, in the dark, we found a spot to camp, made some food (in the pitch black) and froze to death before curling into our sleeping bags at around 8pm and going to sleep. We awoke early the next morning to start our next leg to Dunedin, but not before taking in the spectacular views of Mount Cook (New Zealands highest ...

... In the 1850s, 5000 minors were living in the village, everyone attracted by the gold rush. We could see where the mountains have been dug. She also told us about the meaning of rabbit poo. yes, poo! The animals use it to leave messages and directions to their friends! A bit like e-mails!


We finished by going back to Puzzling world to do the giant maze! Drives you banana that thing!

... towards me a lot quicker. Then my parachute opened and it all went quiet. I felt incredably relieved and started to look at the awsome views around me. My tandem partner started to do some clockwise and anti-clockwise spins, but it made me feel really sick. We were allowed to take our own cameras with us and take pictures once our parachute had opened. I got a few shots of the scenery and Tristan decending. It felt awsome gliding down and genuinely felt like I was ...

... a couple of beefy mountain bikes from the hostel and explore the lake shores in both directions over the two days that we are here. The views are great and we both remember how much we love cycling. I think back to my bike that faithfully took me to work last year which is probably, as we speak, rusting away. We get picked up by the same lady (Naked Bus) who drove us on another journey ...

... and move from left to right for it to look most effective, we spent ages moving around bumping into each other! Very funny!! The next room was the tilted room. you lose all sense of balance as you think you're walking up but really down, balls roll up hill, water flows up, its mind messingly interesting!! The other room was the Ames room, used in the only film ever made, 'Lord of the Rings' where you walk in and one corner ...

We decided to make it a slow day in Wanaka. It's amazing scenery here - a gorgeous lake, with lovely golden hills, sheep, vineyards, and very friendly people. We realized that we have been traveling on the South Island a bit too fast, so we have quite a bit of extra time. Our choice was to slow things ...

... the Caribbean, which like New Zealand, had some boats...the tie-in was good enough for us; - Wanaka's Puzzling World - This was a great place! We sat for several hours trying to complete near-impossible mind bending puzzles, and then went into the holograph and illusion rooms. Our favourite illusions included the tilted room where balls appeared to roll upwards and the Ames room where people went from being huge to tiny in mere seconds. Okay ...

... checked in. Every member of staff I encountered here was English and apart from the nice chap who checked me in, they all shared the ignorance and indifferrence we've come to expect from UK service staff. Most of the guests there were pretty po-faced too, my hello's beeing greeted mainly with nothing. I did have a good chat with one chap who arrived just after me though. His name was Michael and he arrived at reception on his Dawes touring bike complete with panniers ...

... us a lift, and again we could have kissed him.

We had a really good chat to him in the car, a ride which seemed to last forever, and we were astonished at how far we'd walked to get to the point ...