Its a Small(ey) World

June, Rob and Eileen
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Hello all, and greetings from Wanaka! We've spent the last 3 days here - its an incredibly gorgeous town about an hour north of Queenstown, and like most of the places we've been to is on a lakeside and surrounded by mountains. Its a really beautiful, relaxing and cool place. After a few days in backpacker's we've been staying in a lovely studio with its own garden, which has made our time here even better.

Yesterday we had one of the most enjoyable days of our trip so far. In the morning we visited Puzzling World, which has a great 3-D maze to get lost in, and a number of rooms built at strange angles to confuse the senses and make it look like balls were rolling up hill. We spent 3 very happy hours there and left with big grins on our faces!

Later on we went to the 'Cinema Paradiso' to see No Country For Old Men. The film was great but the cinema was even better. It didn't have traditional cinema seats but was filled with sofas and lazy-boys, and there was an interval half-way through the film to go and get cakes and coffees. It was the most comfortable cinema we've ever been in!

In the evening we went out for dinner with none other than Rob and Eileen Searle. Those of you who worked at NU / L&E might remember Eileen as Eileen Smalley, Gordon Dunse's PA. Rob worked upstairs in the business. They moved out to NZ about 3 years ago and just happened to be holidaying in Wanaka at the same time as us, and June spotted them walking down the street as we were sitting having a coffee! It was a bizarre coincidence and it was great to catch up with them and learn about their (seemingly idyllic) lives in NZ. They live at the top of the South Island, so if our timing works out we hope to visit them again next week.

We've loved being in Wanaka so much that we even spent some time looking in estate agents' windows and doing some sums. At the end of the day NZ is probably a bit too far away from home for us, but otherwise this place feels pretty perfect.....