Tuesday night's destructive high tide at Mercury Bay in the Coromandel has turned retiree Bruce Robert-Troughear's 'dream house” into a nightmare.

A beach front property, Robert-Troughear's home bore the brunt of the heavy coastal swells generated by cyclone Hale. By Tuesday afternoon, the foreshore at the southern corner of his property had been 'scalloped away” by the force of the ocean.

Over the course of three hours, Robert-Troughear, a celebrant, was joined by 'about 10 or 15” volunteers who, in a bid to prevent more of his property from being surrendered to the ocean, filled fertiliser bags with quarry spoil to construct an improvised seawall.

Taking matters into his own hands to save his home, Robert-Troughear says the council left him with few other options.

'We have consent to get a new seawall to put in front, similar to the rock breakwater. There are a few hoops to jump through and that could be another, how long?

'We just want our house not to fall in before we get our new wall. But they won't, they just come back and said no.”

On Tuesday evening, Robert-Troughear spoke to Stuff and said the situation was 'frustrating”.

Having bought the property 'about six or seven years ago” for its proximity to the sea and views from the 'catcher's mitt” out over Mercury Bay, he was adamant to do what ever he could to save the place 'he loves living in”.

Bruce Robert-Troughear surveys the damage.

By 4am on Wednesday morning it appeared as if Robert-Troughear's gamble had paid off.

'I went to bed about half past one and think I went to sleep about two, then woke up at four to go and check it all... I was really relieved. I was tired. I was more stressed and tired,” he said.

Had it not been for the impromptu levee Robert-Troughear presumes the sea would have taken more of the property he loves.

Pointing at the corner of his intact patio, roughly a metre away from the new drop in the foreshore, he said: 'It would have taken the corner of our patio off. It would have been back to where the edge of the house is.”

Workers move to brace the seawall at Mercury Bay with concrete blocks.

Robert-Troughear is unsure what the future will hold, but thinks that the $60,000-$70,000 seawall he has consent to build will prevent further reclamation of his property by the sea.

It will have to. His house, he explains, is on an immovable concrete foundation.

'I've never seen it as it was last night. Ever. Our house is on concrete, we can't shift it back.”

In addition to the breakwater, he has plans to construct diversions for seawater in his garden should it be swamped again in the future.

'I'll make something to redirect it [seawater] so it won't go near the house. If that happens every ‘X' amount of years, that's the price you pay for living here.”

Whitianga 'born and bred” Robert-Troughear had no plans of selling up and moving to higher ground.

'I love living here. It is fantastic.”

As sea level rise continues to threaten dwellings and infrastructure around the coastline of New Zealand, experiences like that of Robert-Troughear will become more routine. In some parts of the motu, subsidence is exacerbating the effect of climate change related sea level rise.

Some communities, like the Bay of Plenty settlement of Matatā, have already been forced by flooding and erosion to undertake costly and laborious managed retreats.

A tension is already emerging in the case of Robert-Troughear's property too.

'Almost all who came to help yesterday were saying ‘it is ridiculous that the council won't let you constitute this as an emergency'. When half the deck falls in and half a house falls in, it is an emergency and they [Thames Coromandel District Council] should have allowed us to do [build a temporary seawall] that yesterday.”

New Zealanders who own property in areas prone to coastal erosion, subsidence and sea level rise might soon have to acquiesce to the ugly realities of a changing climate.

-Jonah Franke-Bowell/Stuff.