Page:Gillespies Beach Beginnings • Alexander (2010).pdf/84

 After the hostel was opened Mick Sullivan did a deal with the Commissioner of Crown Lands exchanging an area of land he held in perpetual lease and which the government wanted as a Reserve for another area of about 11 acres to be freeholded to him as the site for a future village. He brought in surveyors to cut the land up into sections. He then set about developing an air strip close to the hostel which would prove to be an important facility whenever the road was closed due to bad weather. In time he sold off sections to those who wished to establish businesses paving the way for the future development of the commercial amenities the growing community would need.

Those who knew Mick remember him as autocratic and decidedly crusty but he was also kind to those who needed a helping hand and above all, honest and reliable. Despite limited schooling he proved to be an astute businessman, full of foresight. He, more than any others, was responsible for shaping and moulding the development of the Weheka Fox Glacier township from the late 1920s onwards. Although virtually the whole of the Cook valley land would end up in the ownership of Sullivan and Williams descendants, it was undoubtedly the development of the hotel and tourism which put the area on the map.

The first flight over the glaciers occurred in 1924 by Flight-Lieutenant Maurice Buckley in an Avro 504K which had been railed to Hokitika, then flown from there to land on the mudflats at Okarito. Buckley had attended the Hokitika Jubilee celebrations at the end of 1923 representing his own Arrow Aviation Company, the sole asset of which was his aircraft, the Blazing Arrow. Giving joy-rides helped fund his promotional work. Following the establishment of the hostel at Weheka, air taxi work began in 1933 with an airmail service starting New Zealand’s first unsubsidised airmail service in December of 1934 by which time the airstrip at Fox adjacent to Mick Sullivan’s residence had been prepared. Those wanting to travel further south down to Paringa or the Haast still had to resort to the old modes of travel, namely the horse, although