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I often start the day feeling puzzled. I call those days weekdays. The other day however, I was not the only one – we were all feeling puzzled. The fact we had only slept three hours and were still semi toasted probably didn’t help. But that’s how we found ourselves – at Puzzling World in Wanaka.

Look at this photo. Most puzzling.

Those steps, that angle. What’s going on?

Lewis in an apparent state of bemusement puzzling over some kind of device that enables light to shine straight through solid walls.

Fenced in some kind of maze. Intriguing.

Hmm, very perplexing.

That’s the end. I think. I’m not too sure. It’s a bit of a puzzle.

Tags New Zealand Puzzling World Wanaka

Did someone say bungy?

In fact the fun didn’t even stop there. We’ve tried mini golf, football golf and last week I saw a red Golf. Well in Queenstown we played frisbee golf. Here’s Rosey putting for 1 under par.

We also met a delightful Italian girl called Anna. We rolled in one evening and having munched all of our own food turned our attention to the pancake derivative (pronounced shmiel apparently) she was cooking herself. The subtle hints worked and Lewis and myself ate the poor girls food. However rather than scaring her off – perhaps she was impressed with our propensity to eat anything in sight (she is Italian after all) – we took her for a drink.

The numbers don’t quite add up what with there being one of her and three of us, but we operated a rotation system with each of us enjoying her company for approximately 12 and a half minutes. I guess that counts as sloppy giesuppes?

Finally, what’s the deal with the weather? It’s cold!

Refund please.

Tags bungee jump New Zealand Queenstown The Edge Travel

And a happy Vimto to you to.

We’ve arrived in New Zealand. A country where sheep outnumber people 10 to 1. I like those odds. We landed in Christchurch. You couldn’t have a more Christian town name than if you called it Jesus-Mother-Of-Mary-Town.

We’ve exchanged the heady pleasures of all hours drinking and bronzed beach time with walking, Scrabble and bed by ten. First stop was Lake Tekapo. It was here that Lewis ‘Action Man Alpine Assault’ Adams left us to undertake a 4 day Alpine Mountaineering Course, leaving Rosey and myself to fend for ourselves. Whilst it did mean we had to get someone else to tie our laces, we made the most of it during a period of time we like to call the Rosebot Adventure.

We set out on several yomps (technical term for walking), using Ray Mears like survival skills to traverse the wilderness. Our first trek took us over Mount John along a couple of lakes and through some military of defense land – oops.

Our second yomp was even more ambitious. We could see a hill from the hostel and figured it’d be worth a bosh. We set out before 9 and just walked in the direction of the hill. Two and a half hours later and the base of the hill didn’t seem to be getting any closer. We eventually started our ascent just as the weather closed in.

It could easily have been a wet day in the Peaks. We went as high as we dared and finally reached ‘Our Peak’ for a cold wet tuna sandwich.

We considered making Rosebot Adventures into a professional outfit – a 25% safety record since 2006!

Customer recommendations:

Steve Vegetables: “I was very impressed the cost of a head stone was included in the tour price.”

Barbara Bogroll: “These guys really wrestle with danger. I got two broken legs before even leaving their booking office!”

After Tekapo we travelled to Mount Cook Village to reunite with our comrade.

Before he arrived we went to the visitors centre. I was looking with morbid fascination through the commemorative book for all those the mountain has claimed. Most recently it took out a tour of people, but something seemed quite familiar.

“Hey Rosey, isn’t Alpine Recreation the people Lewis is with?”
“Er, yeah.”

Crikey. Lewis returned from his adventure full of stories (including the one above) having had an awesome time. Very jealous. From what I gather mountaineering is right up there with battery licking and chainsaw swallowing in the World’s most dangerous pursuits.

We did some more yomping around Mt Cook, going up to Sealy Tarns, Red Tarns and the Tasman Glacier. It’s all impressive, picturesque and you could spend all day taking photos.

Lew and me on Mount Something Or Other.

Next is Queenstown – the self proclaimed adrenaline capital of the world, uh-oh…

Tags Christchurch Lake Tekapo New Zealand Travel