DARRYL GILBERT

Queenstown had only just been given its name and gold only just discovered in the Wakatipu Basin three years earlier when Darryl Gilbert's Great Grandfather, Jock Adamson, was born in the shanty of a town it was, during 1865. By the time Jock was 20, he had shifted to the West Coast, becoming the mailman on the route between Ross and Gillespies Beach near Fox Glacier. He carried both mail and passengers on a spring wagon and packhorse, negotiating the rough early tracks, unbridged rivers and sea beaches to take civilisation into some of the most remote communities in South Westland. The trip was hazardous, with a horse once being lost over a bluff and on another occasion mailbags were swept out to sea. Eventually he upgraded to a stagecoach and a team of horses once the track was improved, with reports of him breaking into song while riding along... Todays road trips around the South Island are not comparable. But with his Great Grandfather in mind and of course in considerably more..