After breakfast this morning, we called in at the jewellers in town to get Laura's ring adjusted as it was a little tight. They told us it would be ready at 4pm, so we left it with them.

Our first proper stop was Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World. This place has been around since the 70s, and started with a hedge maze. Since then, it's expanded a lot and now has a giant, two story wooden maze as well as several 'illusion rooms' inside.

We decided to attempt the maze first and chose the difficult challenge - to get to all four corners in order, starting with the yellow tower. Two bridges crossed over the maze and these had to be used to get to each section. We had good fun getting lost, managing to find the other 3 corners before the yellow one, but we finished it in 55 minutes without cheating and using an emergency door, so we were pleased with ourselves (it usually takes people an hour to an hour and a half!).

Inside, we tried some of the puzzles they had out on the tables in teh cafe while we ate our lunch. Then it was time for the illusion rooms... the first one was full of 3D holograms, and the next was the Hall of Wandering Faces, where you had to cover one eye and it looked like the famous faces on the walls followed you wherever you moved in the room, a bit like the paintings in Harry Potter!

Next was a room that played with the mind's idea of perspective. In one corner of the room you appeared like a giant as you couldn't stand up, then you walked across to the other corner, you appeared tiny (to people looking in from outside). Apparently they used rooms like this on LOTR to make Gandalf appear tall in the hobbit holes! The final room was on a slope so that snooker balls rolled uphill, when you stood on a step it looked like you were falling over at an impossible angle, and water ran uphill. It felt a bit disorientating - all a trick of the mind!

We spent some more time trying and failing to complete puzzles (some with things like 'age 8+' written on the boxes!) in the cafe, before taking some more eye-trickery photos outside. We headed back to town and found a bookshop where we exchanged some of our books, and collected Laura's ring.

After some tea back at the campsite, we drove back to town AGAIN, this time to see a film at 'Cinema Paradiso'. We'd read about this place the lonely planet and it's no ordinary cinema - it's a cool, one-screen place where you can choose to sit in a comfy couch, an old Morris Minor (for the real drive-in experience!) or an aeroplane seat while watching the film! They have an intermission and prepare meals and freshly baked cookies for the interval! We took advantage and took a cookie and a bottle of Brewski (the locally brewed, award winning beer) in for the second half. The film wasn't bad either! It was called 'Oranges and Sunshine' and told the true story of thousands of children that were sent to Australia from British children's homes in the 50s and 60s, often being told that their parents were dead. A social worker called Margaret Humphries discovered the cover-up and spent the rest of her career trying to re-unite these 'lost children' with their families in England.

Back at the campsite, we watched the first Rugby World Cup semi-final - France beat Wales 9-8. A busy day in Wanaka!