The Hinemoa's men hauled 10 large, wooden crates from the steamship, dragged them through the shallows and onto the sand. There were six females and four males, all less than a year old, about a metre and a half in height at the shoulder. The animals stepped carefully into the dim light.
Read MoreHalf a million hectares - sold →
"It's a completely ridiculous process," he says about tenure review.
"First of all, the land should be retained as public land, but if there's going to be huge profits made it should come back to the state, the people who own this land.
"This has happened behind closed doors, as far as I can see. They're not looking at the interests of the public or the wider country at large."
Read MoreAlone in the Christchurch red zone: One man's final stand →
A broken and flooded stretch of Avonside Dr now ends at Taylor's front door: the city's longest, most extravagant driveway.
It took six years for one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods to disappear. Now there is Taylor, and his only neighbour, the Queen of England: She is the registered owner of property titles bought under national earthquake legislation.
Eaten alive →
"I thought by the time it gets to me, I'll be too old to really care. But in the last three years it's just happened so fast," says Gavin Sykes, who lives in Granity.
"People used to use our backyard to have 60th birthdays and all sorts of things. This was beautiful, this backyard. We had plants, nice grass... It was a beautiful area and the sea's just f...ed it.
"Right now, it could be all over for us in a year."