Bowen Humphreys, the Grizzlies Abroad marketing intern, writes:

I took a shower last night and used up nearly the very last drops of a precious liquid. No, I’m not talking about water; I’m talking about a shampoo I bought in New Zealand. I’ve made it last nearly a year, using it for special occasions like a nice date, a big test or an interview. It’s made from tea tree extract, a tree indigenous to New Zealand and is revered for its natural medicinal properties.

For some reason, the shampoo’s scent last night was much more intense, and it brought back many memories of my study abroad program, especially of hiking the famous Routeburn Track just north of Queenstown, my favorite experience of the entire journey. It crystallized the realization that I was truly in New Zealand, experiencing wholly new things. To use the extremely worn-out and tired phrase, that hike changed my life.

The forest that the track runs through is extremely old, about 14,000 years, so I was acutely aware of the ancestry it held. Yet, there was green everywhere, new life and growth. I consider myself well-traveled and have been to many different deserts, mountains, forests and lakes before, but this was an entirely new experience for me: here was death intermingled with life.

Rotting and fallen trees were everywhere, but ferns, mosses and new trees were sprouting from their carcasses. The water was crystalline, recently melted blue and pure from glaciers, but flowed through riverbeds hewn over thousands of years. An arcane energy hummed everywhere you turned. Sunlight was dappled over everything. Here there was light and darkness, life and death, living together in one place. I have several movie clips I took from my camera which make me seem like a buffoon, as all I could seem to stammer into the recording was “amazing…” every five or so seconds. I left feeling not only physically drained but emotionally as well, with a firm promise to return for a much longer visit.

The hike remains one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I fully expect to return later in life for a longer backpacking trip. Although with my shampoo gone now, I may just have that excuse to return.