South Island Trip - Day 3 - Wanaka: the joy of unexpected

I was looking forward to this day really long time. I booked us quite expensive adventurous canyoning down the stream of the river nearby Wanaka and expected a lot from it.

But as my favourite saying goes (life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans), we didn't even get to touch the water on that day.

After about half an hour ride in the big old Toyota, that looked like it's going to die every other second, another half an hour of getting into the suitable clothes and gear, then 20 minute hike upstream, our guides measured the level of the water in the stream and told us it is too dangerous to do the trip and we are going back.

I was unhappy.

I was really unhappy.

Even the Salad Ceasar I had for lunch didn't make me happy even though I am smiling in the pictures.

I was extremely disappointed. (Do you understand me yet?)

 

It looks like I am happy, but I am not.

After briefly considering of renting a kayak and doing some water sports, Marek convinced me, we should go to the Puzzling World instead. ("Pfff, puzzling world, such a fake, I wanted a real adventure" I thought.)

Despite my dark thoughts and reluctance to do anything so ordinary, I really enjoyed the Puzzling World. My smile in the following picture is genuine.

 

 

After going through the couple of rooms of optical illusions and running through the maze I had a coffee and we played with free brain teasers on the tables in the cafe the until they closed the place. I also bought one brain teaser (still don't know, how to solve it, I will take it home and will torture my guests with it).

Marek and my favourite brain teaser.

Though it wasn't exactly how I imagined the day in Wanaka, it was a great day and after all I didn't regret the cancelled trip (and it was also nice, that they gave us the money back and we could spend it on souvenirs and food).

 

 

 



The maze was quite challenging.

After a half an hour in the maze I really was thinking about cheating...

And a happy selfie.

 

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South Island Trip - Day 2 - On the way to Queenstown

Home is behind, the wooooorld ahead…

My plan was to set off early in the morning and drive all the way to Queenstown, so that we can spend most of the day there. Well, the reality was different.

 

We spent most of the day just driving there. Not that I made a mistake calculating the distance. I just overlooked the necessity of stopping about 20 times before we get there. But we just had to! Here are the main reasons why:

Stop no.1: "I am tired… I really need a coffee…"

Stop no.2.: "Hm, that's a really big dam... let's stop here for a small picnic."
Stop no.3: "Look at those hills, it looks exactly like in the Lord of the Rings. I need to take a picture."
Stop no.4: "I need to go to the bathroom."
Stop no.5: "Wow, that’s an awesome orchard… it looks nice… and a shop, let’s buy some fruit!" (Only after a little bit of post-trip research we found out, that we accidentally stopped at one of the most famous fruit orchards in New Zealand - Jackson Orchard.)
Stop no. 6.: "Cheese factory! Let’s have some cheese and wine!"

"Stop no. 7-20: "What a nice place! And a lookout!"

And here you have some pictures so that you can imagine, why we kept stopping all the time.
 

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally arrived to Queenstown, we had about two hours to have a look around before setting off to our hotel in Wanaka. We decided to use Skyline Gondola and have two rides with Luge (Marek made a nice GoPro video during the ride -> check it out here). The town had a nice atmosphere, though obviously packed with tourists. We both agreed that if we are ever going back to New Zealand, we should spend more time in Queenstown.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that's us... it was windy.

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South Island Trip – Day 1 - Oamaru and Moeraki Boulders

Finally we got a couple of days off from work at the same time. We decided to fly to Christchurch and have a look at the South Island. The next few posts will be introducing our little trip day by day, so find a comfortable chair, grab a cup of coffee, and let me share some of my memories with you! ;)

As Marek loves animals, every successful trip of ours must include some of them. Oamaru was the town on the way to Moeraki Boulders (which was my dreamplace since I saw the picture of it as a background on Bing :D), and it is famous for its penguin colonies, so we decided to stop there as well.

My personal driver. And boyfriend as well.

After driving there from Christchurch for about three hours, we visited the historical precinct of Oamaru. No one around and a couple of shops with a lot of stuff. If you are into English antiques, I bet you would feel here like in heaven. But to me it is still a mystery, how they can survive with this kind of business.

An oldschool cash register.

During a surprise hailing, we found a shelter in the Steampunk Museum. Being marked by Tripadvisor as a number one attraction in Oamaru, I expected something really good. Maybe it was my lack of interest in steampunk, maybe something else, but the museum seemed to me really boring. Two dark and damp rooms filled with some weird creepy stuff made out of steel (or whatever that was) made us leave after 10 minutes of walking around.

So this is it... Steampunk Lady.

Inside the Infinity Portal. The best part of the Steampunk Museum.

Mr. Pig or... I don't know.

In front of the Steampunk Museum.

On the other hand, our next stop at Moeraki Boulders was amazing. I could spend three days here, just taking pictures of these stones on the beach from every possible angle. Hugging warm stones nearby the ocean, jumping from one to another, that is my kind of thing! Definitely one of the nicest places we visited on the South Island.

Me.

Marek.

Marek again.

"Rock climbing."

The evening is supposed to be the best time of the day to watch the yellow-eyed penguins on the shore, as they spend their day hunting in the sea. As soon as the sun started to set, we left Moeraki Boulders and went to the Bushy Beach.

At first I thought we were in the wrong place or every penguin is already asleep. But after we decided to find another spot about a kilometer further, we were lucky to see them. They were casually walking on the hills, as close as two meters away from you.

A lighthouse in the distance.

Hello there!

Penguin footprints.

A seal and my shadow.

We saw a lot of seals as well. They were scary and though I wanted the best pictures, I decided to follow the signs and don’t go too close. We planned to go to another nice spot for watching penguins, but it was getting late and we were too tired, so we went to the motel instead as we needed to be fresh for our next day adventure… driving all the way to Queenstown.

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