We started our journey to Queenstown with a visit to Puzzling World. Here we saw optical illusions, holograms, 3-d puzzles and the 'hobbit room', before tackling the maze (SPOILER: all you have toi do is hold your left hand against the wall at all times, you'll find all four corners and the exit his way - it's Greek). Closer to Queenstown we stopped at the Kawerau Bridge, the sight of the first commercial bungy jump. After watching the video on the origins of ...

Let the sune shine! An early start to get to Lake Matheson for some (almost) perfect mirror images of Mt Cook and the Southern Alps. Then, with a few stops for the usual scenic stuff (yes, another view, good) we powered into Mount Aspiring National Park and our destination, Wanaka. Fabulous lake, very cold water - perfect for a swim then. Spent most of the afternoon there, with some diving off of the floating jetties.

The reader will be unsurprised to hear that the day's ride to Franz Josef presented stunning views of rainclouds. Nor will it be a surprise that we were unwilling to let this ruin the atmosphere (although it is getting a teensie bit irritating). We looked into a bushman's centre early on, to see why deer were almost as bad a pest as the possum (until Germans started eating them). Possum pie is very nice, too. Killer pool competition in the evening was the high...

Another washout today, but still it cannot stop us! We started off by heading to Cape Foulwind to go seal-spotting. And spot we did, although most of the pictures don't really distinguish seals from rocks. We didn't, however, spot kangaroos (despite being as close to Australia as NZ gets). Continuing alongside the Tasman Sea we stopped for the Truman Track and Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks (said to look like pancakes) and blowholes. At last the weather ...

Well we timed that well - it's been raining all day. Lake Rotoiti was still nice, but not exactly spectacular. Plenty of walks all day though, and really worth doing even in the rain. Westport didn't really happen today. Everything is cancelled because of the monsoon (I'm not even in India yet!). We have had a chance to watch the LOTR trilogy though!