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It’s difficult to come down from a trip to the opposite side of the world. I count my blessings for the opportunity and ability to have recently spent 16 days in New Zealand. But I’m also thankful to be home, as my travels have given me a new appreciation of things familiar.

If New Zealand has an Indian summer (It would be a Maori summer on the islands), we found it there in April: Sunny skies and warm rains from Auckland to Queensland in the southern hemisphere’s autumn.

Courtesy / Sue Bruns

In Auckland, we met up with our daughter Jessy and son-in-law Matt for a catamaran eco tour to find whales and dolphins. We saw one furry seal, several common dolphins, numerous diving gannets and a Bryde’s whale.

After our stay in Auckland, Gary and I headed to Waitomo’s glowworm caves and the movie set village of Hobbiton. We spent three nights in Rotorua — the No. 1 North Island tourist destination for its geothermal pools. We hiked along Lake Rotorua, through a bird preserve with black billed and black-backed seagulls, cormorants, scaup, dabchicks, black swans and … Canada geese?

Courtesy / Sue Bruns

Our itinerary sampled the variety of the two islands, their native birds and introduced mammals — from the flat grassy plains where countless sheep grazed to long, clear glacial lakes Tekapo and Wakatipu, to Mt. Cook, the highest peak in the Southern Alps. We didn’t drive but took tour buses whenever we traveled.

I have no regrets that we chose not to drive, as transitioning to left-lane, right-side-steering-wheel driving would’ve done us in or at least limited our ability to take in the scenes rather than concentrate on driving.

Our drivers shared interesting information about the history, people, geography, flora and fauna of the two main islands, and geology from volcanic to earthquake effects and geothermal fields.

Instead of driving or navigating, we could look and listen, and I frequently typed notes into my phone’s journal app for later reference. We weren’t rushed and our drivers helped us to understand the rules of the road, like whenever sheep cross, all traffic stops for them. That, too, let us breathe, watch, appreciate and enjoy our laid-back schedule.

Our trip was split into three parts: North Island (before wedding), Aoraki/Mt. Cook (wedding), and Queenstown (after wedding). We’d scheduled a total of four excursions, but the rest of our time was flexible.

Courtesy / Sue Bruns

The wedding of our son Eric to his bride Jessica had brought us to New Zealand. Nineteen guests made the trip. Together at Mt. Cook, with its peak covered with fresh snow, we hiked, dined, visited and shared the beauty of the wedding. We took an excursion to Milford Sound to view New Zealand’s waterfalls and tree avalanches down the rocky face of the mountains. Bottlenose dolphins raced alongside our tour boat.

In Queenstown, our hotel window framed Lake Wakatipu with the Richardson Mountains beyond. We biked from Arrowtown to Queenstown beneath clear skies — our trail defined by brush, mountains and the Kawarau River. Only one word came to mind to describe this view, my being there, and the trail ride: Euphoria. It was dreamlike, heady. Maybe it was the mountain air, but the beauty of the peaks sloping into the river brought me to the verge of tears. If there is a heaven, I was there on this ride.

I realized that soon I would leave this paradise, likely never to return. Maybe that, too, was part of its precious appeal: As far on the other side of the world as I could get, I absorbed the majestic sights that surrounded me, their images permanently fixed in my memory.

Although no age gives guarantees, I am on that side of life where each day is a gift; age is irrelevant, not an impending death sentence, but an awakening of appreciation I hadn’t fully felt or previously understood: Impermanence of life equals increased value.

Two days after the bike ride, we boarded a plane in Queenstown for the long journey home. On the return flight, I found it easier to sleep — without the anxiousness of what was to come or worries about what I might have forgotten. The journey home held two weeks’ worth of unforgettable images.

Is it an overstatement to say that visiting New Zealand has transformed me? I don’t know, but something is different. Can I hold onto it?

To leave Minnesota in early spring and to land on the opposite side of the globe in early fall, where the Southern Cross replaces the Big Dipper, has been like time travel. To return in mid-April to a snowless yard and lake ice ready to dissipate is to carry the beauty of one time and place to another.

Courtesy / Sue Bruns

The second night we were home, I heard a loon call from the open waters of the lake. I caught only a hint of chimes from the receding ice, my favorite sound of spring. Walking Shadow along the lake, we saw our first robin of the season; it had probably arrived shortly after we left. We walked the dogs on the Fern Lake trail. The icy path we’d negotiated before we left, now clear. Buds on the maple trees had doubled in size.

After having consulted my Cornell bird app for New Zealand fantail, kea, ruru, takahe, stitchbird and saddleback, at home ,I appreciate old friends that visit the feeder: the hairy woodpecker, nuthatch, chickadee, blue jay and pileated woodpecker. But now I listen for unfamiliar songs and use my app to identify them. The app says what I just heard is a song sparrow, a common bird whose song I had never appreciated before.

Wood ducks and mallards have returned to the lake. Instead of the diving gannets we’d watched in New Zealand, I pause and watch a bald eagle lifted by the wind above Lake Plantagenet.