New Zealand (Day 3)

I must say, air travel within New Zealand is quite interesting. I'm typing this on a small propeller plane with approximately seventy passengers. There are no oxygen masks in case of a loss of cabin pressure as there is no need of them; we're not flying high enough. The icing on the cake, however, is the very noticable absence of a security check. They do have a security check-point for gates 2 through 7 but not gate 1, which we boarded through.


Moving on from that. The title of this post implies that I will be giving a narrative account of day three of our journey through New Zealand, which I have failed to do thus far (in this post itself or in general, your choice).

Day three started for us in Wanaka. Fortunately for us the bed and breakfast place we stayed at had a beautiful grand piano, so we were able to get some practicing in. Boy did it ever feel good to play. The tour we were taking was not specifically a Lord of the Rings tour, but it did take us past some mountains and scenery featured in the movies. We were picked up from the bed and breakfast and taken to Matukituki River for a jetboat ride. A jetboat ride is much like one of those roller coaster rides which swings you precariously close to small trees and rocks strategically placed to scare the living daylights out of passengers, only there is no track and the only thing keeping you in your seat is gravity and your own strength. In addition, much of the river is but a few inches deep. It certainly was a hair-raising experience, swinging around in a few inches of water, passing within inches (or, in some cases, an inch) of trees, rocks, and branches protruding from the water. All at high speed; a jetboat is much like a hydrofoil in that it only needs an inch or two to operate, so long as it is moving at high speed. In this respect it is quite similar to pod racing as in Star Wars. At one point on the return journey the driver took us through a miniature slalom course of trees, the distance between the trees being hardly more than the length of the boat. Unfortunately, my mother was too occupied with keeping her eyes shut to take any video, and as she was up front and I was in the back I wasn't able to do the video myself.

When we weren't busy hanging on for dear life and praying that our driver doesn't suffer any lapse in his hand-eye coordination, the scenery around us was amazing. The river we were racing up ran through the middle of a mountain range. There are a few scenes of Rohan filmed on the hills, but it's all pretty standard stuff. The final destination of the trip was quite spectacular as well. We arrived to a moderately sized grassy field with a creek running through it, leading up to a mountain with a massive glacier. We all found that it looked very much like the glacier that feeds Lake Louise near Banff in Canada. After a walk up to the forest at the foot of the mountain, throughout which our guide was explaining much about the natural forces at work. Frankly, words can't really describe the scenery as well as pictures can, so I think I'll let the pictures do all the talking from here on out. At least in regards to the mountains.

As the tour was only a half-day tour, we went to Puzzling World to fill the rest of the day. Puzzling world is a place full of puzzles and illusions, as well as a large maze. In addition, sitting outside of the entry is the Leaning Tower of Wanaka which leans a full fifty-three degrees. We did the maze first, quickly splitting up into four groups, those groups being my father, Patrick, and Charlotte, then Jordan and Abigail (well...Jordan with Abigail tagging along), myself, and then my mother just stood on one of the bridges and tried her hardest not to move into the maze. The purpose of the maze was to get to, order, each of the four corner towers; yellow, green, blue, and red, and then back to the start. To reach the yellow corner, however, the route was so long and winding through the maze that most of us found a few of the other corners before the yellow one, meaning that to find the remaining three corners after the yellow took about the same amount of time as finding the yellow.

Moving on from that, there were the illusion rooms, which really were quite something. There was the room of following faces, a room full of faces which appeared to follow you around. There then was the tilted room which simply was an area tilted up fifteen degrees. It was very confusing to walk about in it, because the mind, surrounded by walls all on this angle, thinks that the floor is flat. THus, when you try to walk, you find yourself falling even though you're telling yourself over and over again that it is not actually flat. Included in this room were several illusions, such as water flowing uphill, or stairs that were actually flat but thanks to the tilt of the room appeared to be tilted forwards. There is a video below that explains the appearance of this much better than I can. Finally, there was the perspective room, making you appear to be a giant or a hobbit. Again, the video below explains this thousands of times better than I can with words.

The pictures below are far more interesting than the wall of text above, I promise you.

Video! I have no idea what happened to the sound in the last two...but they're pretty self-explanatory anyways.

Some pictures of the lodge at which we stayed...