My Planet

by Rebecca Hillard (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown New Zealand

The first time I saw Mount Ruapehu, I was thirteen years old. An anxious little American girl in a moon beam sweatshirt. I sat in that loud bus of seventy kids and stared in awe at her stature, boldly siting with her head in the clouds in front of a golden field. And in that moment, I crowned her queen of my mind. I didn’t understand it at the time, but this place was special. It grew a fire in my heart like a volcanic explosion. An electric feeling like a lighting bolt, one that was hard to contain. New Zealand had changed me. In my little world I had become a traveler and a pioneer. It was as though I had discovered a new planet, and it was a planet that I belonged to. I felt comfortable in the wild nature, the luminous mountains, and the peaceful valleys. I had a strong urge to be consumed by it, to live out my days a barbarian of the untamed wilderness. I was dubbed, by those that knew me, a traveler for life, a brave independent woman who would take on the world one country at a time. Years passed and I almost forgot about my discovered planet. It felt like a Never Never Land, and I Peter Pan, had finally grown up. But I wasn’t happy. My life had become excruciatingly mundane and I had developed a paralyzing anxiety. But the thirteen-year-old traveler in me screamed for adventure, it screamed for New Zealand. I started to dream about the mountain, roaming around the landscape. Sometimes I was alone, standing on the highway just staring at it. The memories of the ranges reeled through my mind like old film. The longing became almost too hard to contain, and finally I decided to pack up my life and move halfway across the world back to my planet. It was an easy decision, and within eight months of saying the words out loud I was on a plane to Auckland. I remember clearly stepping out of the airport into the crisp air. I had left everything behind, friends, family, my job, my apartment, for a country I fell in love with when I was thirteen. I had a moment of panic, but it was followed then by an unbelievable feeling of calm. This was where I belonged. A week later I was on a bus to Wellington. The cramped thirteen-hour bus ride was a challenge to say the least. Tired and cranky I awoke to the afternoon sun. We were alone on a desolate highway. I looked to my left and there she was, Ruapehu circled by looming clouds. I became that little girl again in that moment. Though this time I was more courageous then ever. I knew I had to get as close to the mountain as I could. Two months later I was standing at the entrance of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in my new hiking boots and a backpack containing a jacket, a pair of socks, water, and a bag of left-over pancakes from breakfast. I had barley slept the night before from all the excitement. The first half of the journey seemed like a breeze. A wooden boardwalk above beautiful green moss. But eventually you could no longer see a path ahead, only a wall of red rock. All you could do was stare up and as you approached the wall as you realized that there was no other option but to go up. I stopped to stare at the path that zigzagged above the mountain and over to the unknown and then began my decent. The weather turned to a cool mist touching me softly as I took each careful step. Over the hill and down into the valley was truly a Mars on earth. I saw before me a red desert with a single path down the middle and at the end a glorious mountain. The mist climbed over her slowly bringing on a deafening silence. I stood in awe and complete amazement, kneeling into the red dirt of this bizarre world I bowed before my queen.