Stargazing In A Dark Sky Reserve - Memories of a New Zealand Night

We knew we had stayed in the right Airbnb when we drove through the isolated gravel road surrounded by yellow grass fields to our home for the next three days in the Dark Sky Reserve. As novice astrophotographers, this would be our chance to take those pictures we had always seen on National Geographic, where the Milky Way meets the mountain tops and shooting stars dart across the night sky in vivid reds and greens.

Driving along the bumpy path to reach the house, the rolling hills spanned in every direction until they met the tall mountains on each side of Ben Ohau, the smaller town outside of Twizel where home stays and rentals for curious travelers dot the landscape of orange fields and grazing cattle. It was here Peter Jackson filmed the famed battle scene of Pelonnor in the LOTR trilogy - where the fight for Gondor sealed quotes such as “Arise! Arise! Riders of Theodon” into cinema lore. Walking into the house and through the terrace with wall-to-wall windows, I could see why Jackson chose this location as an epic battle scene. The sprawling fields full of life give way to barren peaks of snow and rock. Gondor incarnate indeed.

The quiet was the first thing I noticed. As travelers who spent most of their time in cities and urban centers battling subway rush hour and freeway traffic, this was a blessed relief. The only sound to break its power was the blowing of the field rushes and the occasional hop of a rabbit returning to its burrow for the night. As the sun set behind the mountaintop and the last cars zoomed by, kicking up dust as they went along the horizon, the true spectacle of this location began to emerge.

Yet it wasn't until I hastily woke up at midnight that I could view the starry skys above. There were more stars than I had ever seen. And in the middle of it all was the Milky Way. With a camera and tripod ready, we avidly tested each setting - attempting to bring out the pinks and blues of the Milky Way itself - seeing what treasures a camera lens could capture that the eye could not.

To try to describe the view of the stars would be folly. There were too many to gaze at all at once, the usual dark empty areas now filled with white specks, filling each space with more distant bright suns millions of miles away. It is so rare to see a sight such as this in our day and age - with the only light pollution being young kids in the nearby forest shining a bright light on the mountains, to our frustration.

Standing in the cold in front of a tripod, the only thing being the red glow of the headlamp, I could now understand why such stories were told of the night sky - stories of the shapes and figures seen in each constellation and the creatures that showed themselves in the curves of the Milky Way’s design. A strange phenomenon occurs when one looks out at the pristine night sky. No influence of man in sight, as if the rule of humans on the Earth disappears for just enough time to remind you that you’re just a passing visitor here. You're not the center of the story. I wonder if this is why so many of us crave places like dark sky reserves, isolated mountain tops, or pristine beaches. We are searching for moments that feel bigger than us as if they somehow ease the pains of life or give us a small moment of awe.

As my fingers began to lose their feeling from the cold and the wind began to pick up, I took one last look at the night sky before heading back into the safety of the warm cabin. On that last look, I saw a shooting star zoom past, heading off on a journey to somewhere I’ll never know. And it dawned on me that I liked this feeling of not being at the center of the story - and would continue to seek it out more and more. Especially if it meant returning to the isolated Airbnb cabins in the fields of Twizel to experience it again.