June 27, 2026 — 5:00am
I’m sitting on the floor of the “Zen Zodiac” with my eyes closed and my face tilted towards the sun. We rise and fall as the tide belches and burps around us.
Our guides have tied together two tenders in this collapsed sea cave and historian Ben Maddison begins a guided meditation. “No cameras, no phones and 12 people only,” is how he pitches it. He undersold it.
For the 12 of us that signed up, we could never have imagined such a contemplative morning in one of the world’s most untouched places. When I open my eyes, it’s as if I’m peering up from inside a terrarium. A tui bird flits in the rata forest canopy; around us, thick ribbons of pappardelle-like bull kelp twirl as the crystal-clear lagoon swells before sinking again. Every detail feels magnified, like nature responded when we went inward.
The exact whereabouts of my enlightenment is top secret, but I can tell you this “meditation cove” exists somewhere in Musgrave Inlet on Auckland Island, part of a small group of subantarctic isles off New Zealand en route to East Antarctica.
