The Pony Express was founded by William H. Russell, William B. Waddell, and Alexander Majors and consisted of relays of men riding horses carrying saddlebags of mail along a hazardous 2000-mile trail. The service opened officially on April 3, 1860, when riders left simultaneously from St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. The first westbound trip was made in 9 days and 23 hours and the eastbound journey in 11 days and 12 hours. Eventually, the Pony Express had more than 100 stations, 80 riders, and between 400 and 500 horses. Although the service lasted only 19 months until October 24, 1861, when the completion of the Pacific Telegraph line ended the need for its existence, the romance of the Pony Express lived on with Buffalo Bill Cody's dramatisation of events in his Wild West Show. Buffalo Bill even claimed to have been one of the Pony Express riders, when he was 14, but there is no evidence to support this.
Equally unverified is the "fact" that a certain William Cody, who was born and bred in New Zealand, is a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill. We'll give young Will the benefit of the doubt, though, as it's his first day as a part-time bicycle courier for the Pony Express Wellington (often referred to as PEW) and he is terribly excited.
To celebrate his new job, he intends treating his sweetheart, Louise Frederici, to a slap-up meal in a fancy restaurant. He wants to spend as much time as possible impressing her, so he has asked his new pal in the mail room, Kwan Mei Ko, to work out the fastest route, starting and ending at the same place. He doesn't mind backtracking so long as he is saving time.
The only hiccup in Will's plan, though, is that, in his rush to get to work, he forgot his uniform at home. You have kindly offered to drop it at the depot, but Will's handwriting is such a scrawl, all you can decipher from the piece of paper stuck to the fridge is that PEW is based at -41 18.abc 174 46.def.
Use the map (below and in the picture gallery) to calculate the number (x) of minutes that Mei Ko expects Will will take to cycle the entire circuit as quickly as possible, then determine PEW's coordinates (-41 18.abc 174 46.def) where a=x-300, b=a+4, c=x*a, d=x/33.3, e=b*2, f=e/b.
Remember, there is no particular starting point but Will must end where he started and he must ride along every street at least once.
