CHARLESTON
the latter town they had at first a stopping-place called the Royal Mail Hotel, the site of which is now unknown.
In 1867 the fare was 25/-, “including ferriage over the Buller, and tolls.” This was, in 1868, reduced to 20/-. The only toll on record was that imposed by the owners of the Nile bridge; but the ferry charge at Totara was frequently termed a toll. In January, 1868, the cartage rate for goods was 6/- per hundredweight. Coaches left both South Spit and Charleston daily, and for a time at least this included Sundays. The departure time was “two hours before low water.”
In Pfaff’s book The Diggers’ Story, Mr. John Leydon, of the Carriers’ Arms Hotel, at South Spit, states that he, to forestall Cobb & Co., obtained from Wanganui a coach, named it “The Eclipse,” and actually made the first trip to Charleston by the beach-route. He adds, “Cobb & Co. bought me out. They gave a good price for the turn-out and bound themselves to start and stop at my hotel. . . I did not stay long to enjoy it.”
Apparently this arrangement did not last for long, as it is fairly well established that the coaches started from, and ended their journeys at, the Waterman’s Arms Hotel. However, it is known that later an “Eclipse Line” of coaches ran (in September, 1867) from the Carriers’ Arms Hotel at South Spit, and from a hotel of the same name in Charleston, on Section 238. Shortly afterwards this line was owned by Crewdson & Leydon, and their coaches to and from Charleston arrived at and left Crewdson’s Royal Hotel, Section 108.
Some of the drivers of the early and later days were Dick Duggan, William Ballam, William Hanna, Tom McGee, Michael Quayne, Jack Clements, William Stewart.
Mr. Leydon records that shortly after arriving at the South Spit his wife presented him with “a baby-girl, the first born in Westport.”
SOUTH BEACH.
Leaving South Spit, coaches and wagons traversed the six or seven miles of hard sand then known as South Beach, and now as Carter’s Beach. Carter, a hotelkeeper at
60
