Our Pinesong

- WRITER IN RESIDENCE -

Metlifecare Pinesong resident, Vern Walker, penned this delightful ode to his village. We’d love to hear what you love about your village, let us know at more@metlifecare.co.nz.

Iwas mesmerised by the descriptive Metlifecare blurb: “Let the dream become a reality. Pinesong sits high on a promontory above the Manukau Harbour, close to the eastern flanks of the Waitakere Ranges.” A suburban address, on the very edge of Nature’s bountiful coast. In addition I read that there is a bowling green (for the patient, and those who still have an unerring eye), a large swimming pool (fitness rejuvenated, but at a sedate pace), and a community centre (where some of the hardof-hearing seem to shout at each other, myself included). The lanes and cul de sacs are akin to the snakes in the snakes and ladders board game. Few are arrow-straight, as they carry the frequent and hopeful footsteps towards an octogenarian kind of fitness. There is Plum Tree Grove, Totara Avenue, The Oval, The Terrace, The Crescent and

Pinesong Drive. Names that just fall off the tongue, like a booklet of rhythmic poetry. The size of the village is best measured by the time it takes to walk the distance: around 35 to 45 minutes. En route you may commune with Nature on the native bush circuit, to a background of the large pond, to the croak of frogs, and to the trickle of a man-made waterway, beneath the canopy of native bush. I love the birdlife here. I listen to the whispery flutterings of the tui, and the wood pigeons, and the urgent “tweek” of the rosellas as they hurriedly rise and fall and exceed the speed limit through the trees. On a clear day there is the milky hues of the harbour, smudged by the mud banks of this huge tidal inlet. Along the coast are the winding bays, with scattered dwellings peeking through the native bush. I love unravelling the threads of history. What were the happenings in the wider area, close to Pinesong? Dominating the beginning of the steep pathway down to a small cove on the Manukau Harbour, is a mammoth cypress tree. It dwarfs the Harbour Apartment block located right opposite. I gaze at its stern majesty, and at its imposing girth. My mind runs riot. What was the activity in the area at the milli-second of its germination? I place myself in the 18th Century. A time when the southern Māori paddled their waka across the Manukau, hauled them up through today’s green belt of this coastline. Then followed the porterage of the waka, along what is today’s Portage Road, all the way to New Lynn. Here they would launch their waka onto the Waitemata Harbour.

Our village is not one carved out of barren clay and bleak suburbia. It has a history. The land, a swathe of native bush was purchased in 1946. A Saturday night dine and dance, and wedding reception was built with grandstand views of the Manukau Harbour. Sadly, the reception was destroyed by a fire that occurred on Guy Fawkes night of 5 November 1990. Later the property was converted into a 9-hole golf course by a wealthy Taiwanese developer, T.Y. Tseng. Today’s residents of The Point apartments sit on what was once the 8th hole. Then a crisp chip shot would have curled towards the 9th green located at the end of Beach Lane.

Retirement has a cosy glow in such a resort of repose and refinement. Our neighbours are all faced with similar activities: we purchase bereavement cards in bulk, and we turn the light off at night, in order to keep the power bill down, and not for the romantic reasons of yesteryear! So here we are until we are reluctantly and permanently, horizontally and expensively, carried out the front gate of Pinesong, in a shiny, big, black limo! Meantime, we live in what is the fringe of heaven.