Daily Photo: The evening sky across the Pacific

A short distance from Smails Beach I came across the former Tomahawk Battery and Gun Emplacement, which came into being in the spring of 1942.

Panicked by Japan’s rapid southward advance through the Pacific during the Second World War, New Zealand officials hastily threw up the Tomahawk Battery on this wind-battered headland to help fend off an invasion that never arrived. Built from thick, utilitarian concrete, the installation consisted of two six-inch guns, a magazine and an observation post, all cleverly camouflaged to disguise the artillery array as a pair of innocuous seaside cottages. Today, having never fired a single shot in anger, these sturdy bunker remnants stand as a wonderfully absurd monument to wartime anxiety.

From the disused batteries, I wandered along a path that opened out onto the headland, revealing vast, uninterrupted views of the ocean. Looking out towards the horizon and along the coastline to the south, streaks of violet and burnished gold stretched low across the evening sky, casting a warm, metallic sheen across the vast expanse of water. In the quiet space where the sea met sky, distant hills dissolved into dark silhouettes against the fading glow of twilight.