The Saunders Wander

Wanaka is really an interesting town. We didn't feel like doing any hiking because the hills were pretty open, and it was sunny and warm, so we checked out some of the other sights during our full day there. We had been recommended to a place called Puzzling World, and I'm really glad we ended up there as it was really quite unique. There were two main attractions there, a sort of interactive museum of optical illusions, and a life size wooden maze. We checked out the museum first. Below are some pictures from their life-size Ames room. Because of the slope of the room you can appear the same height as you are when standing next to each other in the middle, but when you are on either side,one of you appears tiny and the other enormous! Not pictured is the warning on the wall where the camera spot is that reminds you that the ceiling height is very low, so you shouldn't come past that yellow line. Even from inside the room the illusion can be seen, and it was pretty ne...

We had originally planned to spend half a day in Wanaka and then drive over to Dunedin, but since there wasn't really anything else we wanted to do in Wanaka, we left early and took the scenic route over to the east coast. Once again, there were some amazing overlooks, now seeing the Pacific ocean from the other side! We had stopped to get drinks and use the restroom in a small town north of Dunedin, and at the visitors center picked up a brochure of all the little scenic routes. On it was listed a neat-sounding feature called the organ pipes. These are bassalt rock structures with a hexagonal shape, that really were quite interesting, despite the New Zealand stupid-steep switchback hike to get to them. We weren't entirely prepared for it to be a hike, since the brochure didn't mention that you'd have to hike to the columns. Luckily, someone had scrawled on the sign that it was indeed an hour or so round trip, and somehow Charlie convinced me to go. It was wort...

Our last day in New Zealand was bittersweet. Part of us was ready to get back to normal life at home, and away from all the eating out at restaurants, but it was definitely sad to be saying goodbye to such a great trip. We started off leisurely with a beach walk after brunch. We didn't attempt to swim, as there were only surfers with wetsuits, but we did walk along the raised sidewalk and then along the sand for a bit. There were lots of people out picnicking and enjoying the sunshine. I assume that this was once some kind of pier, but I just loved the way the pillars reflected in the water. If you look close in this picture you can see a few of the surfers out trying to catch waves. Watching them from our room was really fun, and I was impressed at the skills some of them had. In the evening, we went to the Royal Albatross Center out on the Otago Peninsula. This wasn't something we had planned on doing, but saw a brochure and decided to check it out. Boy was i...