The path to Whisper Cove

Cynicism flowed a few years back when the Mahurangi locals learned of the proposed residential development at the north end of Snells Beach. It was to be large and very expensive. It was to be called Whisper Cove... Whisper Cove...? The name bore no relation to anything except money and marketing. Nobody welcomed the prospect of a surge of newcomers who would prefer to live their prawns, pinot noir and barbecue lifestyle safely apart from the rest of us, among their own kind. Part One of the development proceeded, with much landscaping and drainage, roading and planting, and then about 36 dwellings, jammed up together, all a monotone grey, each peering around the next for a share of the view of Kawau Bay. Nobody except the locals, certainly not the developers, ever mentioned that “Whisper Cove” like the rest of Snells is mainly tidal mudflat for half of each day. The promotional photos never showed the tide, just the distance and the sunsets. Perhaps that is the connotation of “whisper” in this instance.

Then came the Recession. Everything stopped, except the tides. Nobody wanted to buy the units that were by now built and furnished, and were standing there like Shelley’s dry ruins in the desert. The developers went rapidly broke. Local contractors were left unpaid. Weeds began to grow through the flaxes and hebes. The ducks, who had wisely never believed in any of it anyway, continued to thrive. The rabbits came back. One or two forlorn human occupants do appear on the decks from time to time, like survivors of some nuclear disaster, but most of the units are clearly unsold. Nothing ever seems to happen there. The developers owe $36 million to Westpac and $17 million to other investors; some $2 million is owed to contractors, and it seems unlikely they will get a cent. The units were originally offered for sale for between $850,000 and $2.6 million each.

If you go down to the seafront at the other end of Snells Beach there is a convenient car park and the start of a walkway which follows along the shore all the way to Whisper Cove. There and back is about a 40 minutes walk, and we do it frequently because that’s what Senior Cits do. I take a walking stick, not so much because I need it, as because I can use it if necessary to intimidate dogs. Dog owners with their intense attitudes and little plastic bags, and scant regard for the seasonal rules about letting your dog off its leash, abound, so to speak. They form a loose community of their own and stop across the path to swap canine veterinary information. What dogs do is excrete, it seems to me. The owners seem to find some aesthetic value in this.

We walk to the end, at Whisper Cove. There is a wooden fence, which clearly delineates private property – but you can sit on the fence for a while, contemplate Kawau and the bay, and the desolation that is Whisper Cove -- and draw strength for the return. It’s such a good routine. This morning I thought also about another sector of our district altogether, Omaha. Omaha differs in that it has had huge commercial success. Its upmarket homes are a hymn of praise to all these people think matters. But Omaha is built on a huge sand dune. A local builder told me there’s nothing there, mate. Come the Perfect Storm, it all goes. Come the perfect tsunami, Whisper Cove goes too. So in that they are brothers.