The Hologram Hall is interesting. The Hall of the Following Faces is a little creepy. Not for the paranoid. The illusion rooms are the best--I watched water flow upwards for about half an hour trying to figure it out. A word of warning though--all of us felt queasy coming out. It doesn’t just mess with your head.

The toilets are a lesson in perspective. The entrance is a mural of a Roman toilet. Looking at it, you actually feel like you are in the picture.

The shop is a good place to pick up quirky souvenirs. We didn’t have time to do the maze, but I have been told that it is difficult but doable.

www.puzzlingworld.co.nz

A pleasant alternative to adventure sports, Puzzling World was one of the first such attractions in the world - developed by Stuart Landsborough. The Great Maze was the first 3-D maze in the world.

The Maze is fantastic fun -its walkways cover 1.5km in total, but it is estimated that the average visitor travels about 6km to get out of the maze!! Luckily there are emergency exits if you find it a little bit too frustrating!

After the maze you can visit some wacky places like the hologram hall and an illusion room. My favorite was the Hall of Following Faces - you have to see it to believe it! I don't want to spoil the surpise here.

The cafe area is situated in the Puzzle room - each table has several puzzles on it guaranteed to drive you mad! It's free into this room. Many of the puzzles in this room can be purchased, just in case there is one you haven't completed by closing time!!

We arrived at Puzzling World at 10am in the morning, planning on leaving around lunch-time - at the 5:00 close, we were still pulling our hair out at some of the puzzles (at one stage we suggested going back the following day!)

Highly recommended for an enjoyable day in Wanaka.

The main building consists of the illusion house where your understanding of true horizontal goes crazy. So did my head and I had to quickly leave but others seemed to spend ages watching such things as water apparently flowing uphill. The Hall of Following Faces was a surprise. 168 giant faces surround you and they all seem to rotate as you walk around the room. Equally interesting was the Hologram Hall which has a huge display of 3-D hologram photos which can interest you for ages.

The final component is the great maze. This consists of one and a half kilometres of passages on two levels. Unfortunately, the maze was closed for maintenance when we visited but I spoke to several local children who said they thought it was great.

The time you spend here will be determined by if you have children and how fascinated you are by the unusual. Allow at least an hour.

Open: 8.30am-5.30pm Cost: Building-adults NZ$4, children NZ$3; building plus maze-adults NZ$7, children NZ$4.50; great maze only-adults NZ$5, children NZ$3.