New Zealand Road Trip: Part Five

Yep, I knew it. I waited too long to write. I'll have you know that I have very good excuse is time. I was busy being in Australia and studying (not at the same time). Yeah. Don't you feel silly now? Good.
The next day was going to be a boring one. No big plans for us. We had been driving along the 'scenic' route before this point, but that road ended. Just a boring day of driving for us.
Puzzle World
But wait, what is that?! Puzzle World?! We needed to pull over immediately! So we did.
Some background: Puzzle World wants to mess with your brain. There's your background. $5 for more.

Puzzle World seems to have misplaced Physics

Try not to vomit

Let me explain the above picture. You are to go into the room and walk from door to door (without going too close to the front of the room). As you walk, you will notice that the ceiling will either get lower or higher depending on where you started from. You are then tasked to watch the footage and see that it looked like you shrunk or grew while walking. So that's a real thing.

With our perceptions perplexed, we decided to give ourselves a break and go into a nice, easy maze.

The objective of the maze is to reach the four towers (each a different colour to make it obvious), and then walk back to the exit in as little time as possible. It was supposed to take an hour or so, but we made it in half an hour. Not bad, eh? And a good ten minutes of that time was spent after we had reached all four towers and were trying to leave. We walked in circles a seemingly infinite amount of time.

The view from one of the towers

Our next destination, glaciers

Sometimes I'm happy

The detour set us back a few hours, so we arrived at our new campsite after dark (again). Bravely, I dared to face the cold again and sleep in that tent another time.

Driving and Glaciers and Driving

I wasn't that cold. My life was spared for now. Today was going to be a good day (especially since I lived to see it).

This was a busy day. We were to drive to the Franz Josef glacier, take a peek, and drive six more hours to Picton, the last town we would see in South Island.

Franz Josef

We arrived in the rain, with a few hours walk ahead of us. It's a good thing that I didn't bring a raincoat. But I can't complain (except that I did), the view was worth it.

Fun fact: In 2009, the glacier reached the spot I'm standing in

I didn't have to deal with a wet jacket for too long, because we weren't planning on stopping on the way to Picton.

The Hostel

The last South Island hostel

This place has a hot tub and free food. Yeah.

We picked up fish n' chips soon after parking, then topped it off with free ice cream (except for me, I don't get to be happy).

Ryn and I soaked in the hot tub for awhile and reminisced over what we had seen so far. My favorite part (still true for the entire trip) was off course Millford Sound.

Picton-Wellington

To get to the North Island, we needed to take a ferry across the Cook Strait. Because we're smart (sometimes), we rented a car that came with complementary tickets for that day. Now we just needed to wait.

We ate breakfast while waiting to get on the ferry. What's on the menu? None other than tortilla sandwiches! That's right, we even got to choose between peanut butter and jam or salami that had been drenched in pepper due to a faulty pepper shaker (which I threw away following the meal).

This is what a ferry looks like

What do you do on a ferry for 3 hours you ask? Excellent question! You watch cricket. Kyle and I sat and watched 1 game of cricket for the entire ferry ride. Now I...almost have an idea on how to play cricket. Hooray!

Wellington

Wellington
North Island, time for a new set of adventures! We checked into our hostel and made a plan. We were to stay in Wellington for 2 days. So what was there to do? We decided to visit a museum on the first day, and then Alex and I would visit some locations that pertained to a certain franchise the next day.
Te Papa
 If you wanted a translation, te papa can mean 'the ground'. Aren't languages cool?

View from the exterior of Te Papa

This is a giant squid

Maori art

A hint on that franchise

The above picture shows a marae. This is where Maori meet for various purposes (I'm not exactly sure on the specifics). I would go in a marae several days every week for my Maori class, but it didn't look like this. This is beautiful. I've never seen anything like it, and it was an unexpected gem in the museum.

The treaty room. Featuring the Maori-British treaty

Streets of Wellington

This building looked fancy, but we discovered soon that it wasn't. I want you to guess what it was. It's something we all know, and some of us love.

Though the museum was an experience to remember, the next day featured sights that we've all been waiting for for my entire trip. See some of them next time!