Big boom may be annual event

Smoke billows from the gun on North Head yesterday. Picture / Brett Phibbs

The mighty boom from North Head's historic gun reverberated over Devonport yesterday in a ceremonial firing that may become an annual event.

A crowd of about 3000 wandered over the reserve on a sunny Auckland day to watch the firing in celebration of St Barbara's Day. St Barbara is the patron saint of gunners.

Department of Conservation Auckland area manager Beau Fraser said DoC was in discussions with both the Navy and Army on making the St Barbara's Day firing an annual event.

"It's just whether it's something that captures people's imaginations," he said.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter used a plunger box connected to an electrical charge to fire the gun, with the deafening noise and billowing cloud of white smoke drawing appreciative cries from the audience.

The ground-shaking boom caught some spectators by surprise.

"We wished there had been a countdown or something because we were actually looking somewhere else," said Maya Ravaji of Devonport.

But the noise the gun made yesterday was a quarter of what it would have been when it was fired in earnest - which is believed to have happened just three times since 1915.

Below North Head, Prime Minister Helen Clark was cruising somewhere on the Hauraki Gulf with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his entourage, prompting Mr Carter to quip that he hoped the visitors would not be alarmed.

The restoration of the gun to ceremonial firing condition last year was part of a $15.2 million upgrade of North Head's historic military sites (along with other heritage sites), including a barracks and a cookhouse built in 1885. North Head is considered New Zealand's foremost defence site.

The gun

* The "disappearing" 8-inch Armstrong gun was built in Britain in 1886 and hauled to North Head's summit by steam-powered winch in 1889.

* The gun, designed to recoil either below-ground or behind a parapet, was installed to protect military equipment from hostile naval fire.

* It was capable of firing 210-pound shells and is one of the few of its type in the world.