Daily Photo – Otago harbour

When Captain James Cook and his little tub, the HMS Endeavour, appeared off the Otago coast in February 1770, he was already on something of a hot streak. He had been sent to the Pacific to observe the Transit of Venus in Tahiti the year before and, having completed the task, was given free rein to bob about the South Pacific to see what else he could find. What he was really looking for was the assumed existence of Terra Australis Incognita, the great unknown southern continent that many Europeans were convinced lurked somewhere down under.

By the time he appeared off the Otago Coast, he had completed his scientific observations, his botanist Joseph Banks had collected and recorded thousands of previously unknown species of flora and fauna, he had named and claimed a number of islands for the British Crown, circumnavigated the entire North Island, identified and sailed through Cook Strait – proving that the North and South Islands were separate landmasses, created a remarkably accurate chart of the North Island coastline, and had begun charting the South Island.

By any standard it had been a successful trip. Once off the Otago coast, he noted several things in his journal. Firstly, the many coastal features suggested a potentially sheltered harbour. Secondly, he observed an abundance of whales and seals. The interesting point here is that he thought the entrance to Otago Harbour was nothing more than a bay and sailed on, while Europeans would return and slaughter the whale and seal populations to near extinction.

It had been only a few months since the Transit, but an astonishing amount had been achieved. So, apart from the small matter of almost wiping out an entire collection of marine species, the rest was pretty good work for someone who wasn’t really a captain at the time  – he just called himself one!

Daily Photo – Gun Emplacements at Harrington Point

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, I recently wandered out to the gun emplacements at Harrington Point. Some people go to the beach, others enjoy a café. I apparently head straight for nineteenth century military architecture and hope the tide behaves itself.

The road out is classic Otago Peninsula travel. You lope past Macandrew Bay, Broad Bay and Portobello, each looking as though it had been arranged just slightly better than the last, until you reach Harrington Point where you try very hard to park your car “considerately”. This is New Zealand, so the definition of considerate is flexible – on this occasion I aimed for mildly annoying.

The fortifications were built in the 1880s when Dunedin became convinced the Russian Empire was about to stage a dramatic entrance. Quite how the Russians were expected to find us remains a mystery, given we sit in the Pacific like a crumb that fell off the edge of somebody’s biscuit. Still, enthusiasm trumped logic and a maze of tunnels, magazines and engine rooms was carved into the hillside.

Exploring the place today is great fun. You duck into passageways where the air echoes, climb staircases that lead to nowhere in particular and start to wonder how any invading navy would get past the seals who survey the area like slightly disinterested security staff. One seal gave me a look that seemed to say “good luck mate, you will twist your ankle before any Russians get you”.

The whole area feels like a half-forgotten relic from a time when New Zealand thought it was more strategically important than it probably was. Yet that is exactly why it is so charming. It is history wrapped in optimism, resting above a coastline that insists on being explored when the tide is right.