A POST office was established at Wollongong in 1832 enabling the people of the Illawarra for the first time to have communication with the outside world.
Delivering the all important mail between Wollongong and Sydney is a tale of bushrangers, floods, fires and romance. The bush mailmen were a tough breed of men and many earned legendary status.
Benjamin Rixon is one of these men.
Said to have been the best white tracker in Australia, Rixon explored and trekked the escarpment, delivering the mail between the Illawarra and Campbelltown, for over 20 years.

Born at Parramatta in 1806, Benjamin Rixon was one of two survivors of Australia's first white triplets, The Sydney Gazette recorded at the time.
"On the night of last Sunday fe'nnight' Amelia Rixon, the wife of a private in the NSW Corps, was safely delivered of three infants, two of whom are living, and have a very promising appearance".
As a young man Rixon moved to the Campbelltown area where, while working as a police constable, he met and married Margaret Finnamore in 1829.
As early as 1838, he held the job of delivering the mail by horseback between Wollongong and Campbelltown, negotiating the only land route via a rugged bridle track over Mt Keira, before continuing the treacherous journey to Broughton Pass over Cataract River and reaching one of the two inns at Appin and eventually Campbelltown - where another mail contractor was in the waiting to continue the mail delivery onto Sydney.
Rixon also farmed a property south of Appin before settling at American Creek, near Mt Kembla in 1839.
By the 1840s, as well as the Royal mail, Rixon was carrying passengers a couple of times a week between Campbelltown and Wollongong according to The Australian newspaper. Although his "mail coach" was more then likely a cart or dray pulled by a couple of horses, it was the beginning of regular coaching in the Illawarra.
In 1848 Ben Rixon received the contract of 255 pounds for carrying the mail on horseback between Wollongong and Campbelltown and also between Dapto and Shoalhaven twice a week.
Rixon's tracking knowledge allowed him to map and create in 1847, a 14 mile mountain pass and coach road from Woonona to Appin. Although no longer a through road, the lower section of the mountain pass bears his name to this day.

From settlement the only way overland in and out of Wollongong to Sydney was via a mountain pass over Mt Keira. This was an inconvenience for people in areas north of Wollongong, such as Fairy Meadow, Woonona and Bulli.
Rixon collected subscriptions to build a seven feet wide road over the escarpment at Woonona, which opened in 1848 and used by the "post boy".
Rixon's Pass had a gradient of one in two and a half, compared to Mt Keira which was one in five, and it became the preferred route of the mail coach until replaced by the more convenient Bulli Pass in the 1860s.
Although Rixon is probably best remembered for his mountain pass, it was his skills as a tracker that made him famous.
During his lifetime, he became skilled in many fields of work including constable, farmer, shipbuilder, coach driver, mail contractor, road builder and dairy farmer but his most distinguished achievement was his ability to track people who had become lost in the bush.
Rixon was so good at tracking and finding lost men and cattle that his services were in constant demand. His most famous rescue was of Charles Quin, whom he tracked for over a week before finding him, near death.
He was presented at a public meeting in Wollongong in 1857 with a purse of one hundred sovereigns for his deeds.
Rixon also was credited with opening up Macquarie Pass when he cleared the Aboriginal track in 1863. The pass was eventually opened to wheeled traffic in 1898.
Benjamin Rixon died aged 80 years on the July 20 1886 at the Bulli home of his son James, and is buried in an unmarked grave at St Augustine's Anglican Church, Bulli.