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fences, just a track in the tussocks, even the telegraph poles were no assistance when the route was diverted to Marshall’s Ferry [the upper crossing of the Rangitata]. . . . Once the coach pulled up only a few feet from a precipice on the banks of the Rangitata.’^[1] At first Griffin drove between Christchurch and Ashburton and Crawley on the southern section.^[2] The former was a handsome man, known commonly as ‘the Major’, cheery and kindly and pleased to teach his passengers ‘how to handle a four-in-hand and the American method of holding the reins’. Crawley may have been the driver described by Lady Barker, a runholder’s wife who travelled south in 1867. She dined and changed coaches at Ashburton. There was a new coachman. ‘The moment the grooms let go the horses’ heads, he stood up on his seat, shook the reins, flourished his long whip, and with one wild yell from him we dashed down a steep cutting into the Ashburton. The water flew in spray over our heads, and the plunge wetted me as effectually as if I had fallen into the river.’^[3]

Coles tried, during some months in 1864-5, to connect Christchurch and Timaru in one day, the coaches leaving at 5 a.m. and being timed to arrive at 8 p.m. The long wearisome day’s travelling did not prove popular; Griffin, at the time on the southern section, complained of the difficulty of finding his way into Timaru at midnight. But Lady Barker did not complain about following a similar timetable, which had been reintroduced in November 1866. She arrived at Timaru ‘stunned and bewildered’, as the result of the driving, not of the lateness of the hour.

In 1868 Coles sold out, H. R. Cramond being the successful tenderer for their coaches and equipment. He and J. and J. C. Cramond are recorded as holding the mail contract and running passenger transport south until 1874. The coaches usually connected with trains at the railhead in turn at Rolleston, Selwyn and Rakaia. When the railway line reached Ashburton, Cramond ran a service between that rising town and Timaru or Temuka, his vehicles going by way of the new Rangitata bridge.

The gradual disappearance of the stagecoach as the main form of transport along the south road meant also the decline of the accommodation houses as necessary adjuncts to travel. The exceptions were in remote districts with branch services, the only one of which in this area was to Mount Somers. The first accommodation house on the Ashburton River did not, as it happens, last as long as the main road coaches.

1. ↑ Weekly Press, 7 Jan. 1920, p.6
2. ↑ O. A. Gillespie, South Canterbury, p.229 has other names
3. ↑ Station Life in New Zealand, p.140