While in Wanaka…

Wanaka, NZ

The rain that had dampened our adventures in Mt Cook and Queenstown took no mercy on us and continued to pour for the three days we were in Wanaka. Similar to almost everywhere else in NZ, Wanaka is home to heaps of trails for some awesome hikes, but Mac & I agreed that hiking multiple hours in the rain was not an ideal way to spend an afternoon. Fortunately for us, it turns out that Wanaka has a few pretty awesome rainy day activities!

Puzzling World

First up on our “avoid the rain at all costs” list was Stuart Landsborough’s Puzzling World! This building (& its exterior) is made up of two main parts: the Illusion Rooms and the world’s first 3D Super Maze. The maze is located outside (with stairs and bridges making it truly 3D!) and since the rain had been reduced to a light drizzle, we headed out there first. The goal of the maze is to successfully climb the 4 coloured towers before then finding your way to the exit. You can either do it the easier way (finding the towers in a random order), or the harder way (finding the towers in a specific order). We decided to try the harder way and hope for the best!

Given our past experience with this sort of maze back in Valdivia, Chile (we finished in 12 minutes!!), we figured this one would be a breeze! WOW were we wrong!!! This was one tough maze! In the end, it took us 40 minutes to complete it. We were still pretty pleased with ourselves considering the average time is 60-90 minutes. (Mind you, we did start to hustle near the end when the drizzle started to pick up again!!)

With the maze complete, we had to check out the toilets (at the recommendation of the cashier!), and we saw a pretty cool art installation/optical illusion. I especially liked the sign where it was clearly stated to NOT use the benches as toilets.

Afterwards, we retreated inside to check out the 5 illusion rooms. They were: the Hologram Room, the Tilted House, the Hall of Following Faces, the Ames Illusion Room, and the Sculptillusion Gallery. Everything was really cool & very interactive!! The tilted house was a total mind bender and had I stayed any longer I definitely would have gotten a headache!

All in all, Puzzling World was a super fun place to spend an afternoon. I’d totally recommend it even if it wasn’t raining!!

Wanaka Beer Works

A common rainy day activity in a new town would be to spend the day relaxing in a café with a nice, hot cup of coffee. Being that Mac & I aren’t really coffee drinkers, we took to another location – a brewery!! Wanaka Beer Works is 9km out of town and is located on the same premises as the Toy & Transport Museum. As luck would have it, the brewery tour that we so wanted to do was cancelled due to renovations! Instead, the head brewer was kind enough to take a quick break from busting up concrete floors and give us a run down of the beers in the building’s café. Wanaka Beer Works was established in 1998 and currently has 4 regular brews with new ones being added & rotated quite frequently.

We enjoyed our tasting flight alongside a blazing wood fireplace as the rain (& thunder and lightning!) came down outside.

Diamond Lake Track & Lake Wanaka

When we awoke to clear blue skies on our last day in Wanaka we knew that we had to make the most of it before the weather changed its mind. We drove out to Diamond Lake (on the way to Mt Aspiring) and hiked 40 minutes uphill to the Lake Wanaka Lookout. The walk was great and it felt so good to get outside for more than 5 minutes without getting wet!! The views were pretty awesome too.

Just as we started to head back to the car, the wind started to pick up and we could tell we’d be in for another wet afternoon. The clouds came in so quickly that what was once a clear view of Mt Aspiring had since disappeared! We headed out to the shores of Lake Wanaka to admire the views before rushing back to the car for some shelter.

From Wanaka, we headed towards Haast and the west coast. It poured the whole way, but similar to our journey through Milford Sound, we were treated to some awesome waterfalls – including one especially powerful waterfall at Thunder Creek!

Other Information

While in Wanaka, we camped at Albert Town campsite (just a 5 minute drive from Wanaka). The campsite was free and was right beside a river which offered fantastic views of nearby mountains.

There were also flush toilets (a nice change from the drop toilets we’re used to at most campsites) and a place for water & washing up. What it lacked was a cooking area or shelter, so Mac & I made do on the shores of Lake Wanaka at a small covered picnic table. We made instant noodles for lunch then ate them in the car to get out of the rain. If this doesn’t qualify as hippie campers I don’t know what does! We even had a fleet of ducks to keep us company!!