In these quiet moments before the night softens the mountains of the South and deflates the clouds that float beneath their peaks, the dying sun's rich, peach glow deepens in the gathering gloom. There, where the mists stretch a false horizon between the sea and the land’s end Aratika glides across the trackless strait and winks out beyond Terawhiti. Taputeranga Island looms up in the bay beneath my windows, gathering grandeur in the shadows that blot the features of little wonder, commanding the bay in a mysterious night.