Old Coaching Days In Otago and Southland Lovell-Smith, E M

Hardback, very good condition, small name has been rubbed out and left mark on fron end paper, dust jacket scuffed, chipped, closed repaired tears, and small pieces missing from edges. Published by Capper Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1976.

The South Island gold rush of the 1860s, centred on Central Otago and Southland, created an immediate demand for quick and reliable passenger transport services between the coast and the hinterland areas where the diggings were situated. As many of the miners and prospectors were from the Victorian gold fields, which were becoming worked-out, it was logical that Cobb and Co, the most renowned of coach operators, should extend its businees to the new fields. The author's opening chapters deal with the arrival of this company and its employees. Lovell-Smith, in this important contribution to NZ's transport history, covers the operations of the many coaching companies that operated in the Otago and Southland areas until, by the late 1870s, the railways were making such inroads to the coaching services that they literally fell by the wayside. In compiling this history the author not only had access to the archive of the many newspapers published in the gold rush towns wihich, like the news-sheets, were often short-lived, but he also had the advantage of speaking with those personally familiar with the actual coaching era. Thus the book is enlivened with anecdotal recollections of coaching competition, of struggles in unyeilding weather and terrain, of incidends, accidents--some tragic, humerous and even courageous episodes and the characters at the reins. Lovell Smith spent "many years of patient research" gathering material for the book, with the excellent results found in this record of the coaching days.

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