The world is your oyster

Sometimes, somewhere, something is seen that makes you wonder at the world. The world is your oyster and every now and then it just delivers a pearl. Yesterday was a pearl.

We are in the Arahuriri valley at the Lindis. A present from WH for my 60th birthday. From the drive in it is spectacular, full of the scenery that only NZ can deliver. It’s gold plated delivered on a plate, no make that a platter as its more than a main course its a smorgasboard. You can see it, smell it, feel it, taste it.

After a disrupted day of just missed flight connections and 6 hour airport waits we leave Queenstown after a grumpy sleep, with a cold rainy sky and then three hours later there is this. It never gets old.

Our pod is nestled into the landscape that it mirrors and projects back towards the valley. We lie back and watch the sun disappear behind the mountains.

Now these things are all beautiful, and I am indeed a lucky girl but the pearl is yet to come. Later in the evening as I make a bold and nearly successful attempt at beating WH at pool we are told that the Aurora is out so its hats and coats on and out we go.

It’s stunning. You can just make out the glow with the naked eye in a pinky green haze, not dissimilar to a setting sun but through the lense it just lights up like magic. It seems to dance along the horizon and its hard to know where to look.

I have my camera and try to manually set the aperture and ISO and shutter speed and give up as it’s dark and my freezing fingers don’t work well. I am grateful my grandson taught me how to take a night photo on my phone and I click, and click, and click.

There was a streak of pink light that was like a search light reaching into the night sky. The Milky Way stretched above us and I was annoyed at the light of the moon casting its ray into the nightscape.

It’s a rocking chair memory. It’s a treasure It’s a pearl.