Wanaka

We had tasty breakfast today, making full use of the kitchens at the campsite - scrambled eggs, beans, toast. Yum! Anyways, thus fortified for a while at least, we set off to 'Have-a-Shot' just outside of Wanaka, in order to test our aim and various projectile weapons. First up was archery. Now, I had a bit of an advantage here having practiced weekly for a couple of years at the local shooting range, but here we were equipped with bows, arrows and targets. It was excellent fun and reminded me how much I miss the sport. After a few quick tips Alex was shooting away like a pro and I managed to get my eye in and land some good target practice. I will not reveal end results (being a good sport and all) but surfice to say I may have ended up with just a few more points than Alex did...
Next up was the rifle range. Now, this scared me. I dislike guns. I dislike their use and their purpose. However, Alex had done this before and we had quite the competition going by now. After instruction on loading and aiming and all that jazz, we set to.
 

Bang! Quite a noise, yet much easier than bows to aim! I managed an entire target sheet with holes all gathered in the middle. Top points to me! Alex tried to get a bit fancy and aim without a rest, so lost what would have been his lead.
Finally, we took a turn at the driving range with the golf. Now, I do not see the point in golf, other than as a social sport. I can whack the ball, but that is pretty much it. I also did a few classic try and miss swings. Doh. Alex was hitting the balls all over the range, in the attempt to hit the TV at 100m and so win us $45. Alas, it didn't happen, although he did get to a very impressive 160m.
Once we had finished indulging the need to shoot things, we headed off to Puzzling World, an oddity park full of illusions and mindtricks, as well as a massive maze. We managed to complete the maze (eventually) which was on two levels and involved finding four towers in a particular order. We managed the towers reasonably well, the hard part was then trying to get out again! When we finally emerged, we had trod at least 3-5km and were exhausted. We recharged with a slab of chocolate cake and some brilliant puzzles in the cafe, then headed into the illusion area. First up was a room of holographic pictures that leapt out at you as you passed. Then, the worlds only 'Room of Following Faces', where large casts of famous people's face sline the walls and their concave nature causes them to follow you intently about the room - not just their eyes, but their entire head!
 

After pictures with Mandela and Van Gogh respectively,we headed on into the Balance Room. Oh, was this odd! The whole room is on a tilt, so that you walk upright, but appear to be slanting over...it was so hard! We kept falling down the room and banging into the walls!

 

It really messes with your head. There were optical illusions on the wall as well, to further confuddle your poor brain, so we had anti-grav chairs and water flwoing the wrong way to contend with as well.
Wrenching our way out of that room, we went to the Ames Room, which is how the hobbits were created in Lord of the Rings - it appears to be a normal room, but when filmed a person on one side appears to be too large to fit inside while the other person on the opposite side is so tiny they cannot reach the ceiling!

We also explored (this is going to sound odd) the toilets - where an illusionist motif painter has a replica Roman bathroom just outside of the real toilets.

 

Lastly, we tried some silly poses around the meandering buildings of Puzzling World, just for fun.
Once we had returned to our campsite, we had a full-on sort of the car. We cleaned it out and got it spick and span. I was also made to streamline my lugguge, which was a traumatic experience. I am now in mourning for the things which I will have to send home in order to lighten my load. We made an epic amount of dinner and then got sociable - the dining room was full of people who all wanted to chat, so we have been in here for about 3 hours swapping stories and travel routes with various people, from Scotland, LA and Germany! It all started when our 'next-door neightbor' in the campsite asked me a question...even though he seems incapable of hearing my answers! They have all gone now though and we are going to bed after I have finished the blog - Alex is currently dancing around the kitchen/dining room area with the fish slice, attempting to defend himself from the overlarge moths flying around the ceiling. There is an all out defensive going on here!

Updated Flickr with lots of shiny new photographs, also, hopefully sorted the comments issue (again).