Gone with the wind
Suddenly that strange bang - like a cracking bone - followed by the rolling sound of a long sea breaker made me
looking up from my campsite just under the majestic mountains of the Aoraki Mt.Cook region - whoow, a loose piece of the glacier on the edge cracked and came
down the cliff, triggering a spectacular avelange. I grabbed my camera ...
My hike up Hooker Valley on a
bright day was supposed to be the "starter" for the coming night in my "sky view" tent
that allows from inside looking straight up into the sky while escaping slowly away into an
even bigger dimension of space - the universe of dreams.
Around midnight. Some noise made me awake. Uups, some clouds limit my expectations. Anyway, why should I change the warm spot of my sleeping bag ... I turn around. Again awake, this time the noise sounded like my tent was alreay sailing in strong wind. But it was only a first sign to experience wave-like gusty winds down the mountains. Bang, stressed voices, nervously moving headlamp lights ... the first tent was gone. I strengthen the highly flexible aluminium cross of my dome from inside, first with my arms, next using also my legs. No way. I must take a chance during a wind break to put my tent down. Bang, another tent is gone. Silence ... now or never! I get up and out, starting to perform military drill-like steps to dismantle my tent. Got it! But while opening the hatchback of my car nature takes command again. I rush and fall in the darkness, and still can see somehow my air mattress taking a lift-off ... gone it was!
Early morning, the first
daylight makes it through the low hanging clouds. The storm has passed, only some
fine rain reminds like a hang-over of the entertainment of last night. Time to
search for my mattress that I eventually find not far away in a narrow creek.
Oh, and that bright red on the horizon in the wet, green meadow must be my
pillow. What a great day - yesterday - and what a night it was too, indeed!
My days up in the mountains
not only remind me the time out in nature some 20 years ago - the more basic my
journey in terms of "outdoor preparedness" gets, the more it touches my intuitive interest in "to be" and "evolution". Even
science gets into a proportioned perspective against the rocks shaped by
glaciers some millions of years ago.
Notwithstanding, at the Sir. Edmund HillaryAlpine Centre one gets an introduction and orientation of the unique features
of the southern sky ... to put the informative astronomy lesson into practice
in the "gold rated" darkness of the night. By the way, Hillary's
chance to climb iconic Aoraki Mt. Cook came in the summer of 1947, in company
of Harry Ayers. Off course I was looking
forward identifying and exploring different elements of the spectacular
southern sky. The last 20 years I was living under the "SouthernCross" but never came that close. And the ways will depart further - out
of sight - moving back to Europe.
Around midnight. Some noise made me awake. Uups, some clouds limit my expectations. Anyway, why should I change the warm spot of my sleeping bag ... I turn around. Again awake, this time the noise sounded like my tent was alreay sailing in strong wind. But it was only a first sign to experience wave-like gusty winds down the mountains. Bang, stressed voices, nervously moving headlamp lights ... the first tent was gone. I strengthen the highly flexible aluminium cross of my dome from inside, first with my arms, next using also my legs. No way. I must take a chance during a wind break to put my tent down. Bang, another tent is gone. Silence ... now or never! I get up and out, starting to perform military drill-like steps to dismantle my tent. Got it! But while opening the hatchback of my car nature takes command again. I rush and fall in the darkness, and still can see somehow my air mattress taking a lift-off ... gone it was!
Time to depart. Time to go on. Turning on the heater, alone on the road
again.
so the universe is changing, who are we? how long will we exist? as humans as this thing do small.
ReplyDelete