Kayaking

Since I was little I've grown up around kayaks (thanks to daddy) and find them a great way to explore a city from a different perspective.
There's just something about being on the water with an unknown depth of lake below you, fishies going about their day, people not taking much notice of you. It's a great way to take a step back and to really see where you spend most of your time.

Anyone in Queestown can rent a kayak from the bike shop by the lake for about 1hr/$14.

Messing With Your Head

The rest of Puzzling World included roman public toilets, the Lord of the Rings illusion room, art illusions, following faces, 4D hologram photos, and the leaning tower of Wanaka. Your mind is so easily tricked, but it made me appreciate the fact that the world is so full of wonder and that questioning that same world around you is a really good thing.

One of my favorite things was the cafe; every table has a few different brainteasers on them to finish off the day. Perfect for enjoying with ice cream or a drink after a long day of having your mind messed with.

#79: Walk Through a Natural Labyrinth

So this wasn't exactly the type of natural labyrinth I had in mind when writing this post. I thought of trees and hedges on an estate someplace.
Nonetheless Puzzling World has a massive 3D maze (which technically can be considered a natural labyrinth) that we had to try out when there!
It's quite long and confusing. You complete it by either finding all four colored corner towers in any order, or in a specific order listed.
We started out aiming for the specific order, then found a different color one and just kept going from there. We succeeded in finding a way into 3/4 towers and then gave up (Chris no longer wanted to follow me up the same set of stairs for the literally 20th time) and went exploring the rest of the place...

*The above photo is from http://www.labyrinthsnz.com

I think one day I will find myself a nature-grown natural labyrinth and try my hand at that, or even come back and try to solve this one. I'm not one to leave puzzles unfinished.

#72: Go Ziplining

We went ziplining (or doing a flying fox as it's sometimes called) very soon after doing the bungee so it definitely didn't feel as adventurous as a lot of people make it out to be. The cool thing about doing it here is that there are a few different lines that take you all the way down the mountain which means that you can try a different way of "flying" on each one of them. My favorite would have to be backwards, upside-down and free handed, though that does make you go a lot faster!

We wanted to do skydiving as our next major adventure activity, but that's almost impossible to find in Asia so we might have to save it for another part of the world. 

Has anyone else been zip-lining? Did you find it an adrenaline rush?

Dinner With a View

The last activity we did at the gondola was dinner. A delicious all you can eat buffet dinner (we clearly enjoy places with big portions and a number of choices, Chris probably more-so than me).
The food selection was good, though the food itself is not exactly the best I've ever eaten. The dessert bar is amazing. Some of the hot meats are really good as well. The cold platters or side dishes I didn't enjoy so much.
But really the main reason to come here is for the views.

And then as the sun sets they get even better.

Since we were taking all different sorts of transportation that night I decided to take a bee to cap off the night.

There's BookMe deals for dinner sometimes as well so you wouldn't have to pay the pull price for it. I probably wouldn't pay full price, if you can't find the deal just go up there for a drink at sunset and get dinner else where in town.

Haka and Poi

 
The Haka is, in a simplified way, known as a traditional Maori male war dance. Recently it's been made popular by the All Black's, the New Zealand rugby team who perform it before the start of their matches.

Watch how intense the energy of these guys is. This is from the 2011 Rugby World Cup. France starts to move towards them, it's never happened that another team came to challenge this tradition in such a way. Watch what happens!

Poi on the other hand is the traditional women's way of telling stories and performing.
This is one of the things we went up the gondola to do, to watch, learn and participate in these Maori traditions!

Chris got elected as the spokesperson "chief: of the group and was formally accepted during the performance.

Then they went on to perform a few different types of dances.

And then it was our turn to learn.

All in all I'd say it was a success, we definitely weren't as good as them though. Maybe I'll suggest doing a haka at our weekly rugby matches. I'll let you guys know how that turns out.

We did 1 more activity up at the gondola.. Check out the blog tomorrow to see what it was!