A big puzzle

Tuesday 11th March

For those who don't know Queenstown it is the adventure sport capital of New Zealand, and in some ways the adventure sport capital of the world. Many others will claim this title, but in fairness it did sort of invent the idea of bungee jumping (as a tourist attraction anyway). Added to this is all manner of rafting, gliding etc activities. And thats only in summer. In winter the place really comes alive with skiing.

Anyway that is an explanation as to why the first part of the day in this fine place was spent in tourist offices. Trying to organise various activities and trips. One trip of course we wanted to sort out was a Lord of the Rings tour. As most people know, the films were all filmed in NZ, and a lot of the scenes were around Queenstown. So there are a lot of tours taking you to the locations. However after looking around, and finding the price of these tours, and aided by a map and a book about the making of the film, we decided to skip the tour and find some of these places ourselves.

So off we went to Arrowtown. This is a little town that made its name from a gold rush. It is exactly as you would imagine any town in the Yukon, or any other gold rush area. Anyway it was the scene of the crossing of the ford where the elves wash away the Nazgul. You'd know it if you saw it, and we did see it. But as it was raining we didn't hang around.

So we headed off to Wanaka, another town built on a lake (they all are around here). A nice place, but very quiet. However it does boast puzzling world, a world of puzzles. Its interesting, some optical illusions and so on, and a massive 3D outdoor maze. I think we got through it in a resonable time.

After that it was back to Queenstown and Clare made us dinner. With an apartment you don't always have to eat out.