Leaving New Zealand: Why the Departure Kept the Journey Alive
February in the Summer…. If anywhere radiates endlessly with the wax and wane of Nature, it is New Zealand. Whether chilly or warm, windy or calm, cloudy or bright, for an entire fortnight this country eclipsed any mortal description. Phenomena here must be known directly to begin to fathom that essence of the Universe which is hidden from everyday reality—that which makes us ache with insurmountable joy when we experience it.
This scene, right above, was the most revealing, relieving, incredible scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Clouds, drawn back like a curtain; sunlight, drenching the swaths of land; my awareness, focused like a laser and connected to all, like the color blue now connected to the sky. I was completely lifted from the swamp of my growing, pulsing fever, and my lacking, draining energy. As the clouds drew away, the sunlight was insurmountable, leaving me on the frontier of the Universe….
The day didn’t start great. That’s for sure. I had woke mildly feverish and warm in the morning. Congestion had set in, too. I felt well enough for this day-trip by bus into the Southern Alps, though. Who knew when I would have an opportunity like this ever again.
Settled by the French on the giant, volcanically-formed Banks Peninsula, emerald Akaroa sits snugly within a gently rolling fjord. This is where the ship anchored.
Today was a day when the clouds and the sun fought to dominate. As we departed on the tour bus, the long, horizon-defying slopes gleamed in lances of sunlight searing the gray asunder.
As the tour bus wound into the hills of the Banks Peninsula, rays poured forth to create this scene…. Effortlessly, I knew this scene to be the perfect foreshadow of the journey now begun.
Ahhhhhhhh…but I could feel my body weakening. The tour guide talked on the intercom sporadically, keeping mainly a low presence. As she offered bits of knowledge when it was warranted, like when the bus entered the bounds of the Canterbury region, I felt the sagging of tiredness too much. At some point I tuned her out unwittingly. All the while the slow shift of light on the world continued. And, the hills grew, and grew, until their massive forms elevated the horizon in waves of ridges.
On the bus flew as I nestled in the back, with my fever steady and my sinuses rising and falling gently, like they had a mind of their own. Oddly, the dampening of my bodily energy illuminated my mental energy. The peculiarity was poignant, yet not at all unwelcome, for I revelled in a gathering attentiveness to the ever-evolving loveliness passing by. Slowly I settled into a dozing peace, with many moments of sheer beauty keeping me awake.
The moments lengthened, but at the same pace of my growing fever. At some indeterminate point my comfort became disconcerting. My limbs were leaden; my mind didn’t want to move them.
But finally, I knew freedom when the bus turned into the farm. My muscles anticipated standing and walking, and eating, for the tour would be fed lunch here.
I recall, embarrassingly, being taken aback by the sight of seemingly aggressive sheep-shearing (during which we were reassured the sheep don’t mind getting shorn, even if the shaver sometimes leaves small cuts). I wondered about where the wool would go, and then wondered about just how much wool contributes to the market of New Zealand—after all, the sheep population outnumbers the human population here. The explanation was given by an older farmer who looked like he came from the imagination of Mark Twain—if Mark Twain had conjured a Midwest farmer with a heavy Kiwi accent. Of course, this gets at one of my main reasons for loving travel: expectations built by your own culture can be picked apart slowly, or broken instantly, or anything in between.
The sheep indeed were happy enough! And the freshly-shorn one seemed perfectly content. Ok then, I thought. No harm done.
Though the population of sheep continues to drop steadily, they still outnumber human populations about 5 to 1. On the way to this farm I had already seen many groups in the fields of the Canterbury region.
I think my mind needed the physical exercise more than my body. I eagerly anticipated what was to come as the bus set off. The day had reached its zenith, and from there the boundary between my peace and exhilaration began disappearing. And, my fever continued to grow.
Time passed in long, delicate strands. The fever progressed along these strands into lethargy. For a while, I was truly semi-conscious. The thick gray canopy above only augmented that state. The peace remained. It brought the best out of my now-permanent wakefulness. I could not doze off completely; I could only expand into that which I perceived. However, the expansion held little substance or meaning. It just…happened. That’s when I knew my wakefulness wasn’t as strong as I’d thought…. Jaded and unmoving, I existed, while my peace turned to apathy.
Hours it must have been…but the denseness of the canopy began turning white. Along with that, my mental energy turned white, too. I had been hoping the day would change, and now I needed it to.
All of my energy now swelled inside. The strength of my fever had been making the edges of my vision blurry, like being inside a vintage film but watching myself…. Now, I was hearing the tour guide’s information about the Southern Alps from what seemed like leagues away. Stunningly, after so long underneath the gray canopy—after so much time spent brooding with a pulsing head, pulsing sinuses, and the uncomfortable warmness of sickness—the advent of deep-blue sky was known to me. The clouds were drawn just like a dark curtain, like a restless night upended by a bursting morning.
How long had I been partly conscious? The curtains had been drawn—the most revealing, relieving moment in my time here in New Zealand. My sickness was distant now, and this revival I I felt was only the beginning.
The feeling of transcendence in travel always starts with awe, and often this is accompanied by incredible wakefulness, in addition to an incredible calmness. The entirety of me was radiantly awake now, and revived entirely. It was like the world gave way to a new era. My peace and exhilaration were now one.
My ears prickled with the tour guide’s explanation of the history of Arthur’s Pass, and how in the 1860’s it became a major route when gold was discovered in the area. But I was still semi-conscious, this time to her words and the bus. With my awareness completely on the scenery, there was a total numbness to my body, and to time, within a satisfaction limitless in happiness and stretching far beyond the new horizons I saw.
From the first days here in New Zealand, I had been overtaken by sights and interactions beyond expectation. This hundred-mile journey through the essence of New Zealand connected me to the country with a bond that was indestructible.
After what was indeed many hours, we finally reached the train upon which the tour would trek, back toward whence we came, but with an intimacy to this unbelievable land.
The train windows were tinted a strange color, but nonetheless offered maximally-wide views.
The train back through Arthur’s Pass was also time-consuming…. At this point I began feeling overloaded by all of this great scenery. But now, we were facing a 150-min bus ride back to Akaroa…. What to do with so much time…?
My permanent bond…. I knew it to be true, forged by several things. Strangely, and amazingly, I owe gratitude to my fever for making this day so special! Sleepy calmness, which dominated my wakefulness, still brought about a transcendence, unbalanced but unique to this defining trip.
I had been listening to three artists in particular while in New Zealand, and all of them pinnacles of my musical influence so powerful that they partly defined my travels. The Brian Blade Fellowship marries modern jazz with pop, folk, and gospel sounds to create gorgeous tapestries of sound which manifest odyssey-like compositions. Jim Black’s work from the 2000’s blends avant-garde jazz with heavy, grungy prog and indie rock; the result creates sonic beasts which can be alluring, epic, rebellious, or all of these at once. Cuong Vu also delves into a merger of prog and indie rock with avant-garde jazz. Here in Arthur’s Pass his music’s vibrations were so relevant I could hear them without the music being played….
Once music is made, it can be documented in recordings. The most incredible thing about music that moves us, however, is not that it can be listened to over and over; it is that its vibrations, unleashed in the original, first instance of resonance, continue to resonate in and with our minds and our being. To bring those vibrations out again allows our being to vibrate.
I took no pictures on the trek back to Akaroa, because I burned for Cuong Vu’s music. It could make this permanent bond to New Zealand truly known. Some of his music is ferociously avant-garde, but some of it is achingly emotional. There are pieces that begin with this emotion in thin textures and soft sounds, but grow and grow into rock-power-ballad majesties so impactful, and so epic, that your very reality seems to quake in it.
The strangest feeling, though, is when you reach into the very deepest part of your core, while your core reaches out to embrace everything in front of you, and brings that back within…. As the music resonated with me, and as the fever sat, I found my senses shifting between my deepest core and the embrace of this Heaven-upon-Earth. I resonated with both the music and New Zealand…. I might have been content the rest of my days on this road….
I owe an eternal debt to the music I was listening to during that time, for showing me how to reach inward so far that I appeared to end somewhere that a new me began.
I was never the same after New Zealand.
The endless beaches of Napier. In their endlessness I knew the entire expanse of the country.
Lovely Picton, surrounded on all sides by the mountains and hills of the Marlborough Sounds. Picton is a main hub of seafaring between Wellington and South Island.
The downtown area of Dunedin, which was founded by the the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland in 1848. Its Scottish roots are seen and known to this day.
Below is a gallery of an off-road exploration of the Oika Reserve, part of the Otago Peninsula outside of Dunedin.
From the top of Mt. Maunganui.... This view was one of many experiences in New Zealand that left me overwhelmed in the best way.
Highlights from the hike are in the gallery below, starting with the beaches leading up to the mountain paths….
From Tauranga, we traveled inland to see Hobbiton! My life was certainly more complete after this, as I’m a massive Tolkein fan.
More pics below!
The last two days of the fortnight were spent in the boisterous, compact, zealous, and windy (seriously windy) capital city of Wellington. This place stews in its own insatiable culture of creativity and natural exploits alike with a uniqueness that is still incredibly New Zealand-esque.
I did the movie tour, of course—because that was mandatory for a sci-fi/fantasy fan like me. That tour brought us to Mt. Victoria. From there, being pushed on all sides by the fierce wind, I saw everywhere I wanted to wander (and quickly made my way down the hill, for the wind was getting really frustrating). In all honesty…I may have wandered most of what can be seen from here:
So:
In those wanderings I bought a flute case (yes: to this day I’m using that same case);
I spent time with a lovely girl who had an accent influenced by three different continents;
I saw the Lady Norwood Rose Garden, whose colors made me forget the cloud-cover;
I went past casually-hip streets with vertical establishments;
I saw this…um, thing…that houses Parliament, called The Beehive (because…well, yeah);
And I moved through the industrial-artistic promenade of the Waterfront Sculpture Trail, which includes Wellington Writer’s Walk. The harborfront gives the best welcome to any and all people with an abundance of Kiwi and Kiwi-inspired art.
There was all of this, but my luck was even more ridiculous; the drummer on the ship at the time is from Wellington. He had already talked it up, and raved about the greatness of the music scene and how much was going on. Alongside his influence, and everything else that screamed “NEW ZEALAND,” this plaque nearly made me forget I worked on a cruise ship.
There were few times in my travels when a place fit me so well, and so fast. I still think about living in Wellington to this day, but it goes beyond that. I think of living in a country where the veil between reality and something more is not really a veil, but a guiding angel.
Nothing good could come from leaving. This moment was dreadful. I had grown used to the despondency that comes with this moment. But today, it penetrated toward the realm of taboo. So it was that, on that final day in Wellington, I so very reluctantly made my way back to the ship with all of my time in New Zealand swimming in my very being. The pain began when I saw the stadium—the stadium that signaled where the ship was docked. It was the inevitable gate.
The music of Jim Black was the soundtrack as I approached the point of no-return. The music is fierce, angsty, and even gleeful in all its heavy-rock-jazz abandon. What makes that abandon both more acute and more substantial are the melodies. They drift stirringly over the roiling mass of sounds. They are all inherent to the stoic but emotional saxophone and clarinet voices of Chris Speed. It makes the music combine all of its misfit-characteristics into one entity whose statements are expressed in utter conviction. There were two particular pieces I needed to hear, pieces that grow and grow in intensity until a blistering peak is reached. The moment I boarded that ship the strain would break, as would my angst. This music personified it all: I. Was. Not. Finished. Here.
I didn’t feel myself board the ship.
The echoes of music haunted me for weeks afterward. Certainly it was Jim Black’s music that dragged me back onto that ship. The first night was spent rocking softly on the ocean in my bed, mostly empty-minded, and inert to the rocking. Several days later came the great, throbbing sadness. The sadness, incredibly, catalyzed into a restlessness within hours. That restlessness channeled a flurry of music listening and composition ideas. Thus I was haunted by the eerie momentum of restless sadness, composing after work each night into the early morning hours. There was gold, however, far beneath that process. In a mighty paradox, out of that restless sadness grew the infinite happiness and gratitude I have for New Zealand to this day.
About the music
At some point, weeks later, I realized I had been blinded with both deep sadness and extreme joy when I’d boarded the ship. This emotion at the time was a paradox which cancelled itself out, to say nothing of defying definition…. But, the first part of Leaving New Zealand attempts to represent that paradoxical emotion. The building of the texture into the eventual full-band sound is both an affirmation of that paradoxical emotion, and an effort to break out of it into the true feelings I have for New Zealand. Lifetime gratitude for a place to which I’d formed an indestructible bond—this is the truth, and is known fully as the solos begin. And when they end? Well…the sadness and the gratitude mix again, but from a standpoint where the gratitude is dominant. To know New Zealand was a journey; leaving it was never the end of the journey….