Up early to prepare for the Rob Roy Valley & Glacial walk. D checked the weather at 9am: patchy cloud with showers forecast for mid morning. Packed warm clothes & wet weather gear, & set off into Wanaka, to get more info from the i-site (pretty useless!) & the DoC office (very useful!). Blue skies immediately above the town, but as awe started driving north & west, we could see the grey clouds hiding the mountain tops, ahead of us. After ~10km, the clouds seemed to be thickening, & we decided to call it quits (much to the children's utter delight!) & head to Puzzling World, instead!

20 mins later we were happily playing with the dozens (?hundreds) of available puzzles, in the entrance room. After a little while, we decided to try the maze, outside, and spent a fun hour trying to find the four corner towers & then the exit. Originally, we were going to attempt the maze separately, but it (somehow) ended up as D vs the rest! At one point, L.J&M had found 3 towers, and D only 2, but D found the next 2 towers quickly, & got to the exit with the rest of the family still searching for a way to the final tower!

After the maze, we sat in the courtyard (in bright sunshine!!), to eat lunch, then went back inside for more puzzles. The next ½ hour was spent in the Illusion Rooms, with water & chairs running uphill, holographic 3D pictures, visual illusion paintings, & the hilarious "perspective room" ("a technique used in LotR", boasts the sign outside !). Took a few photos, but mostly spent the time laughing, and trying really hard NOT to fall over! Afterwards, the kids wanted to go back into the maze, so D&L sat outside with a coffee, still feeling ever so slightly "off balance!"

One final stop outside, to take photos of the leaning tower of Wanaka, & play with the perspective! Drove back into town, & down to the play area on the lakeshore, for the kids to have a go on the dinosaur slide! D&L managed to wait for ~10 mins, before the cold wind from the mountains got too much! Headed back to the Motor Park, & spent 15 mins playing on the lakeshore, there. M didn't want to leave, so we pretended to start to drive away without her!

Back to the cabin for tea, D&L started chatting to a Dutchman called Lenny, who was travelling with a guitar! After the kids were in bed, we spent a couple of hours chatting to him, while D had a go on his guitar, & flicked through his songbook.