First day in Wanaka

Leo’s Blog: Breaking news….Flood in Wanaka!

Today was our first day in Wanaka. Once we got on the road, it was a 2.5 hour drive to Wanaka. Before we checked into our apartment, we went to Puzzling World. Puzzling world is a place with optical illusions and lots of mazes (and puzzles obviously). To start we tried the 30-60 minute maze. It only took approximately 20 minutes to get through 3 towers (we had to get up 4 towers and it was really tricky because we always thought we found the tower but then it said “NOT THIS CORNER”) and then it started to thunder and rain and I freaked out because I thought we were gonna get hit by lightning because we were on a tower. So we got out and went into all the rooms with the illusions.

Back inside, we went into the tilted house. The tilted house is a house that is tilted and it is super hard to walk up.

Erica here for a second – there were so many optical illusions in puzzling world that I felt sick/dizzy. We left and checked into beautiful Lakeside apartments (with Laundry – YAY!!!!!!) and the kids went swimming in the rain while I set up shop.

Leo’s back: After the pool we took a little walk into the town and we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. After dinner we went back out for a walk and we saw all the fire trucks to control the flooding in Wanaka. It was a crazy sight to see how a boat gas station was under water and the parking spots were under water. People were wading through the water in boots when the water was knee high. Overall I found this fascinating since all these beautiful lakes and mountains and beautiful scenery were all around me everywhere I went.

Erica here to finish it off – The clouds cleared at 7:30pm so we dragged the kids around town just to enjoy clear skies until sunset. Of course it’s meant to rain again all day tomorrow and I have to say that this town is by far the most beautiful I have seen. A lake surrounded by snow capped mountains and TONS of amazing restaurants and shops. Adam and I spent much of dinner trying to figure out if we could somehow change our plans later in the week to come back here while it’s sunny and beautiful but due to high season and non-cancelation policies it is not meant to be.

So…. I have been hinting to the kids that a university exchange in either Australia or NZ is a great idea so perhaps we can come back here?