After ditching the car for a few days while swimming with the dolphins in Kaikoura, I quickly corrected my mistake once I made it down to Christchurch. After picking up a hometown friend from the airport, off we went into the countryside, up and over Arthur’s Pass and down towards the West Coast, where mountains, glaciers, and pancakes await.
By virtue of a late start and dumb luck, we found camp on the first evening just below the pass, where there happened to be a short trail that led to a riverbank inhabited by glowworms. Unlike my previous experience in the cave, this time the glowworms spread out all around, just a finger’s length away. As our eyes adjusted, the glowworms multiplied, as though clouds in the night sky were drifting away to reveal the Milky Way. Constellations appeared almost directly over our heads, adding a bit to the confusion as to whether we were still outside along the river or perhaps somehow inside some sort of cave. As the headlamps came on, the glow dimmed and the riverbank came back into focus, the glowworm sky once again hidden to the un-adjusted eye.
Back on the road again in the morning, the mountains gave way to rocky coastline, dense green forest, sunshine, and anticipation for what the road held in store for us next.