West Coast to Wanaka

Leaving the west coast and the rain behind, we drove east over Haast pass, along the Haast river, Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. We arrived in the town of Wanaka, at the base of Lake Wanaka, early enough to spend the afternoon at 'Puzzling World'. This place was great fun! Rooms full of illusions, holographs, mind benders of all sorts, including the room of 1000 faces where all the faces followed you as you walked, or the room where one person looked tiny and the other gigantic, or the room with the angled floor where balls rolled upwards and water appeared to flow upwards! We had a blast, laughing lots! Once outside, we tried the maze: wooden fences built to trap you at dead ends at every other turn. We must have walked 4 or 5 km while trying to find the four different towers and then the exit - and it took us over an hour!
When we finally found our way out of there, we treated ourselves to a giant gelato, sitting on the beach, looking out at the lake....