Our holiday - stop 2 - Wanaka

We so loved this place! It is stunningly beautiful, but still relatively unspoilt. The town is small and compact and the views are to die for!
We started off a fun filled couple of days at Puzzling World which the children adored. They loved the illusion rooms with faces that follow you, holograms, Ames illusion room (one side you look like a hobbit, the other like Gandalf) and the tilt room. This last room caused lots of hilarity as we fell over and began to feel quite giddy. Joe liked the illusion of water running uphill, snooker balls rolling up a tilted table and a sliding chair rolling uphill.
We spent an hour or so exploring the very frustrating maze, managing to reach 3 out of the 4 corner towers. There was lots of traipsing up and down stairs and getting stuck in dead ends. As it got hotter, we got slower and snuck out an emergency exit!
The next day we went swimming in a very cold Lake Wanaka, (yes that is me - sooooo cold!)picnicked and then visited the Toy and Transport Museum. The boys loved all the old cars and Fire Engines.

Our last day was probably the highlight - we took a boat out to Mou Waho island. It was a bumpy trip because the wind was getting up. Once at the island we landed on a beach and climbed the steep sides to about 200m above lake level. There we saw Arethusa pool, which is about 11m deep. So weird to see a lake so far above another lake!

We left Wanaka via the Cardrona highway/Crown Range road (the highest sealed road in NZ at 1100 metres) It was very windy but gave spectacular views! - Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown in the centre disance.