NIGHT LIGHT RULES APPLY
The majesty of the skies above Tekapo is captivating, writes Sarah Daniell.
We have travelled more than 1000km, we are 1000m above sea level and we are looking at Saturn, about 1.2 billion kilometres away. Through the telescope (magnification 150 to the naked eye) I can make out Saturn’s rings, and the spaces in between, around the fuzzy orange centre.
“People ask us,” says Jordan, a guide at Mt John Observatory, “have we stuck a tiny picture of the planet on the end of the telescope.”
Through another telescope, the moon is a revelation — a perfect chalky white crescent. The lunar maria (or oceans) and craters visible. It’s glorious and bizarre to see that kind of detail.
We are gazing up at world’s largest international dark sky reserve (4144sq km), only the fourth such reserve in the world. The Milky Way and the “Jewel Box” (a cluster 6000 light years away) are clearly visible to the naked eye. The only thing that could rain on this parade is heavy cloud or the moon.
“There’s nothing worse than a full moon,” says Josh, another guide.
This is a light-pollution-free zone and a full moon is the worst offender. No white light allowed, we are warned on our shuttle ride up the mountain. No cellphones, no iPads, no torches.
Nothing can interfere with the majesty of the skies. For around a couple of hours, the only source of light to guide our way over the lumpy ground around the telescopes, and each other, is a small red solar-charged torch, for each of us in our group of 22, to take home as a souvenir.
Our eyes adjust quickly to the darkness and the payback is immense. Even on a cloudy night, the clarity is at 60 per cent. The night we’re there, at about 9pm, it’s around 85 per cent clarity.
We can only just make out the small village of Tekapo (300m below, pop. 300). In solidarity with science and the star gazers at Mt John, the town planners ruled the street lights are capped and must point downwards.
Someone hands out hot chocolate to warm us up. Not that we need it, in our standardissue Antarctic-grade jackets.
“I studied astronomy at the university of YouTube,” Josh says. Astronomy, he says, is 90 per cent physics, and 10 per cent enjoyment. Josh was all about the fun, so took a detour around convention and ended up a DIY expert on the southern skies.
He is also endearingly unsentimental. Spoiler alert: A shooting star is just a rock from a star, randomly falling.
We got to Tekapo on day six of a nine-day journey. The day we left Auckland there was no sky. We were excited about new horizons, visiting towns with names both familiar and distant.
Our campervan is a perfect fit. We travel to 12 towns and wherever we look there are mountains — a vast reference point that’s alluring and
The real joy of travelling by campervan is that we can stop wherever we like, and we do.
terrifying. The real joy of travelling by campervan is that we can stop wherever we like, and we do. There were many just like us parked up at Tekapo. If viewed from space, our campsite would resemble a ribbon of shining white hardware. We set ourselves up for two days in what’s grandiosely called The Front Row, which looks out over Lake Tekapo and layers of mountains. The light here is blinding. The colours dance. The kids gather rocks and declare they’ve “totally, absolutely, probably” discovered crystals and pounamu. There are some brave souls swimming in the lake. Actually, they’re standing waist deep and not moving. It’s 7C in there and they are possibly in shock. Some fool is showing off in a jetboat. At the lake’s edge a tourist is trying out a drone. It lifts into the sky, a weird white alien, and vanishes above the clouds. You can still hear it, though, up there somewhere, taking aerial shots of small colourful people, glancing skyward, waiting to see what it’s captured.