Puzzle World

Today was Puzzle World. The most gruelling, sophisticated and misleading maze to ever be build by man. Or so it felt. It was a wooden maze, just below my head in height and in the four corners were four towers; red, yellow, green and blue. You had to reach each tower in turn, but the maze was designed so that walking in the direction of a tower was the least likely action to get you there successfully. However, upon reaching a tower, that was your golden opportunity to scout out your next route from above. In all I believe we successfully managed to reach the final tower in just under 45 minutes. Unfortunately it was the full hour and ten before we managed to retrace our steps and find our way back out again.

I'm glad we did Puzzle World because it allowed me to divert my thoughts away from the planned activity for the afternoon. Good ol' Noddy, our bus driver, had signed me up to a 47m bungee jump. This may not seem a big deal to a lot of people, but anyone who knows me will know that I am terrified of heights, to the extent that I will constantly lean firmly against the wall when stood at any kind of height. So this was a big deal for me. In the end what convinced me to do it was firstly that Noddy would never have let me live it down if I bailed out, but secondly that it was directly over a river canyon, so I could pretend I was just doing a big dive into a pool. It was also the world's first ever commercial bungee jump location and therefore a not-to-miss experience.

As I sat on a ledge overhanging the canyon, a man was casually wrapping a towel-like cloth around my ankles, while asking how much of my upper body I would like to have submerged when the bungee is fully extended and I reach the river below. Apparently it's more of a rough science, so as he clipped on one end of the bungee to the towel-like cloth, I suggested that I didn't really fancy getting wet today. He then helped me up and pointed to the end of the board. After managing to shuffle forward, my feet firmly tied together, my toes over the edge, he said: “look forward, don't look down and when you're ready, stretch out your arms and leap as far forward as you can.” So I did.

Afterwards we went to Queenstown, and I spent the whole evening telling everybody how amazing it was and how I'd do it again a million times over. Whether that's true, well that's another story.

Noddy's fact of the day:

Haast Eagles had 3m wing span and ate the Mori Ori people. When the Mori Ori people started to defend themselves they killed these eagles and made them extinct. The Mauri (the current natives) then arrived, cannibals at this period and ate all the Mori Ori.