Away from the World

Pacific Program has taken me across the world to some truly beautiful places, but only a select few of those places have made me feel disconnected from my life at home. By disconnected, I mean not only offline, but utterly unconcerned about the worries that typically plague my life. The three places along this trip that have made me feel as if my life back home doesn’t exist are Tokomouth, Abel Tasman National Park, and Heron Island.

Ending up in Tokomouth was, quite honestly, a complete accident due to an ultimately fortunate series of events. I flew into Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island with a group of 8. Of that group, 4, including me, planned to sleep in a hostel and 4 planned to camp for the night. What I hadn’t realized was that the hostel we booked had a cat which I am highly allergic to. I was only in the hostel for 10 minutes to check the group in and I was struggling to breathe. Since I couldn't sleep in the hostel, I instead got to have my first experience camping. While Marissa, Megen, and Sydney stayed in nice comfy beds, Brian, Thomas, Gibbs, Nick, and I had our own adventures camping.

In New Zealand middle of nowhere really means the middle of nowhere. As in no people, or plumbing, just sheep. That's how we found ourselves driving down a gravel road Thursday night towards the South Island's coastline. Our destination was another group's Air B&B where we planned to camp in the yard. It turns out that their Air B&B was a hut with a few beds and no bathrooms, but they were located right where the river meets the water with the entire Milky Way above their heads. The stars that night made camping beyond worth it; I've never seen stars like that in my entire life and I may never again. 

In Tokomouth, I was only disconnected for a single night, but that was the beginning of a whole new perspective. The Milky Way gave me a better idea of how small I really am in this world. Instead of being intimidated by this, I felt reassured that the worries that plague me in my life, in the grand scheme of things, don’t really matter. It’s very easy for me to get lost in my own personal worries, but the vastness of the Milky Way began to pull me in a new direction of thinking.

While Tokomouth was only one night away from connection to the rest of the world, Abel Tasman was an entire weekend of disconnect surrounded by nature. Abel Tasman is a national park located on the South Island that is only accessible by foot or some sort of water transportation. Our group chose to see the park by kayak and spent two days kayaking up the northern coast of the South Island. The first day of kayaking we went 20 km which really gives you a lot of time to think as the landscape glides past. The lack of technology present, including our form of transportation, drove home how truly cut off we were from the world beyond us.

That night at the campsite, our group of 12 sat on the beach and talked for hours. That kind of bonding and comradery is something that so rarely occurs anymore in our modern society. The disconnect from the rest of society gave me the chance to be present in the moment and connect more deeply with the people I was with. By getting to know my fellow students better, I felt connected to something bigger than myself, something that I had started to be able to picture when I was staring up at the Milky Way in Tokomouth.

Heron Island was the last and most prolonged disconnect that I have experienced on this trip and ever in my lifetime. The week that I spent on Heron Island was one of the most magical experiences of my life. Saying that I spent the week on the beach doesn’t do justice to the sacredness of such a stunning island. I felt as though I had truly stepped into nature with the calls of the birds and the hatching of baby turtles surrounding me. It was here that my perspective truly clicked into place.

Tokomouth made me realize how small my problems are compared to the universe, Abel Tasman made me realize the importance of deep connections and conversations, but Heron Island is where it came together. Heron Island is where I realized my connections with nature and combined all of the

learning that I had collected along the trip. I came to these realizations in a very similar situation to where they all started: under the stars. As I lay on the beach with the stars stretched overhead, I felt a sense of peace with myself, those around me, and nature that I didn’t realize I had been missing. Disconnect, I have discovered, can sometimes be an extraordinarily good thing for the mind and soul. I realize now that experiences like these are increasingly rare in the US and that I have been privileged to not only have these experiences, but be able to appreciate them in this way.

~S