Solo Traveller - Nick
We’re not really fans of long forms, so when it came to designing our booking form, we really wanted to keep it to a minimum. Often people emailus@authenticAs.org to discus their booking and we get to know them a little before we meet them. Other times they just book and we don’t really know who we’re going to meet.
On my way to pick up Nick, I knew he was going to be on his own and I had an inclination he was travelling here from Australia. What I was about to discover was that I was going to spend an evening under the stars with the most inspiring young man from Melbourne.
At 18 years old he was working 2 jobs and making the absolute best of his life. He was in Queenstown to learn to snowboard and tick a few things off his bucket list. Looking into the depths of the universe was one of the items on his list, and we feel so privileged that he trusted us to help him do just that.
We often get asked if we cater for solo travellers and the answer is an absolute yes.
All of our trips are priced per experience, not per guest. We want to provide an individual and tailored adventure for our manuhiri (visitors) and we believe that we just can’t deliver on that if we’re taking out groups of people who don’t know each other. Plus, in this modern COVID world, this offers everyone the safest environment possible. We wear our masks in the vehicles meaning you don’t have to keeping you as safe and well as possible.
Our way of doing things, means that for our valued solo travellers, we really can make the most of our time with them, ensuring their specific needs are well and truly met.
In Nicks case, he really wanted to see some deep space objects, so we made sure that we spent lots of time looking through the telescope and binoculars. We helped him learn how to use Stellarium, our favourite star gazing app, so that when he’s back home in Australia and away from the city lights he can navigate the heavens himself and amaze his family and friends.
As we packed the telescope away and took photographs to make up a beautiful 360 degree panorama image, he was able to sit and contemplate the wonders of the universe in his own quiet space, with a hot chocolate and brownies to warm him up.
Te Marama (the moon) is the second brightest object in the sky, the Sun, our closest star is the first. It’s the closest celestial object to our planet and it’s impossible to not have noticed it’s presence in the sky day and night.
This is where it gets interesting. The moon orbits around the Earth. The light from the sun is reflected off the surface of the moon and allows us to be able to see it.
It takes the moon 27 days, 7 hours and 43 to make a complete orbit around the Earth, a time period known as a lunar month. This means that for each of our Earth days during a lunar month, the moon will rise and set at a different time of the day and point on the horizon. The shape of the moon changes each day of the lunar month.
The first day of the lunar month, Whiro (New Moon), the moon rises between Earth and the Sun at dawn. Rākaunui (Full Moon), half way through the lunar month, approximately day 14, the moon rises opposite the setting sun.
Each day it rises and sets approximately 50 minutes later and it’s shape waxes - grows, until it becomes full, and then wanes - shrinks. As it waxes, we see more of it, and at night it illuminates the heavens and our environment. Due to the light being reflected, it’s polarised which is what makes everything look silky and smooth, just like everything looks through our fancy polarised sunglasses during the day.
The phase of Te Marama obviously has an influence upon what we can see in the night sky. During the phase of Whiro, the sky is black, and around here, the number of stars we can see is mind bending. It’s difficult to make out constellations and seeing your feet can be a challenge, it’s that dark.
During Rākaunui, the sky is a beautiful blue, the environment is lit in the most silky smooth way and the brighter stars pop revealing the constellations. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s day time.
For Nick’s Starry Night Adventure, the moon was seven days old, visible as a 44% waxing crescent, transiting the sky in the constellation Libra. As you can see from the photographs, this lunar phase is simply stunning.
It also means that the sky is dark enough to make out deep space objects, such the Omega Centuri - one of our favourite globular clusters and the gas clouds of the Carina Nebula, as well as spectacular viewing of the moon itself.
We want to extend a huge thank you to Nick for choosing to come on a Starry Night Adventure with us, we know he had an amazing time and learnt so much, and in turn getting to know him inspired and nourished us no end.
We believe this is a true example of a modern day authentic tourism experience.
If you’d like to discus what phase the moon is in when you’re visiting Tāhuna (Queenstown), please emailus@authenticAs.org and we’ll be more than happy to discus the different options you have during your visit to this amazing magical place.
