I was once again in my hometown, a place of greying skies and infinite rows of symmetrical brick housing. Far from the reaches of open space, and mother nature’s extraordinary power.
Home, a word I had always struggled to fully understand the meaning of. I was one of those people that felt at home everywhere, and yet nowhere. Claustrophobic in my four-walled world. I would walk to work, hearing whispers on the breeze. Go to sleep, monolithic shadows haunting my dreams. Something was missing, something I couldn’t see. My mind could not quite comprehend the feeling. In German, they have a word for it; Fernweh. Translated into English as “farsickness.” A longing for a place I’d never been, but that somehow felt like home.
I would spend hours reading books on travel and adventure. Researching. Planning my next move. Stories of strangers who thought they knew themselves, finding solace in a new world. I would watch films about women who conquered their fears, took soul searching journeys and inspired a deep sense of longing for the world inside my mind. Somewhere deep inside I heard the call. The call of the mountain.
This year of incoherence culminated in booking a one-way ticket to New Zealand. I longed to witness Nature at its finest, its purest, in its most raw form.
I drove alone, singing along to my music in the car. My vocals tone death, but no one present to begrudge my effort. Travelling alone always brought me a sense of solace. A chance to reconnect with nature, a choice I made to reconnect with myself. Suddenly the atmosphere changed, and I felt a strong notion to turn off the radio and cruise gently along the road, with only the natural ambience surrounding me. I wound down the windows and let the cold, crisp air prick at my skin like an icy blast. The wind whipping my hair into a wild mass. My senses waking up to the unknown path beyond. I was on my way to Mt Cook National Park. Home to Aoraki, its Maori name. The tallest peak in New Zealand, at 3,724 metres, and a place that would forever hold a piece of my soul.
As I arrived at my lodging, the evening turned into a fierce tempest. Rain lashed at the windows as darkness engulfed the surroundings into an impenetrable void. I sank down into my blankets, the final hours ticking away relentlessly. I waited for morning, restless in my sleep. My heart beating a song of patience in my chest to calm the tension that coursed through my veins. What would the morning bring?
Sunrise arrived, and my eyes sprang open to a blinding white glow. I threw on every layer I could reach and ran outside into the crisp wall of frozen air. Every inch of land beyond my vision decorated with a fresh covering of powdered snow.
The car journey to my final destination was short, and the few hundred snow covered steps hardly laborious. But my heart ached to reach the precipice. My toes tracking a steady beat through the fresh snowflakes. Suddenly I was there.
It was a long time before I could move from the spot. It felt almost like an eternity of time had passed as I stared out into the landscape. Have you ever experienced a moment where something seems so unreal, even as you stare at the scene in front of you? Every time I blinked, the scene would appear again before me, almost more beautiful than before. Like my mind did not attain the power to comprehend such boundless beauty that surrounded me. I couldn’t tell if the scenery was changing, or I was. Aoraki, the formidable mountain towered behind me, merging with her brothers and sisters, all huddled in a snowy grip. I felt at once humbled and grateful in equal measure to be part of this scene. Part of the landscape for a fleeting moment. A tiny, insignificant person caught in a grand display of mother nature at her finest.
Every inch of the mountains, rocks and heath in a pure, infinite blanket of white snow. Only the lake had avoided her formidable path. I gazed into its murky depths, concealing the mysteries below. Feeling a sense of wonder wash over me as I felt the lake gaze silently back to me. It knew me, it knew why I had come. It reminded me that this was my joy, my saviour, my home. A home I could witness, but never be a part of. I felt the calm of the icebergs floating still in the water, as large as elephants, as silent as the night; almost waiting. And of course, they were. Waiting for their moment to leave this Earth as swiftly as they came.
A sudden feeling of sadness interrupted my thoughts. Seeing pieces of this gargantuan wall of ice break off, It struck me that Tasman Glacier, the largest glacier in New Zealand, was dying. Global warming was having such a rapid effect on this corner of the world and before long the lake, the ice, and the wonder could disappear. Gone forever, left only in the hearts of those who were lucky enough to witness the majesty.
I would think back to this moment, look back on the pictures I eventually managed to take, and hardly believe I was there. I felt a secret wish grow silently in my mind. Mixed with the melancholy that such beauty would come hand in hand with such sadness. A dichotomy of nature; beauty stacked against sorrow. I hoped that I would be lucky enough to witness this place again. The glacier was within me and without. She had taken a piece of my heart, and left there a shard of slowly melting ice.
