When Gillies was five, his parents decided to return to their native New Zealand, and moved to Invercargill and then to Hamilton.
He joined the New Zealand Railways as a clerk and soon rose to be Station Master at Kaiapoi, Ashburton, Invercargill, Gore, Greatford, Halcombe and in the early 1880s Palmerston North.
The South Island Limited express ran three days a week from Christchurch through Dunedin to Invercargill, with a slower regular express operating on the other four days.
Originally providing services to the Aoraki/Mt Cook region of the South Island, the company grew to take over many other New Zealand bus companies: H&H of Invercargill, Luxury Landlines and Hawkes Bay Motor Co of the North Island.
In 2004 she fell out with Netball Australia and was drafted to New Zealand playing for the Invercargill-based Southern Sting in the National Bank Cup, a team which won seven out of ten of the National Bank Cup titles (1999–2004, 2007) as a backup shooter for Donna Wilkins and Tania Dalton who later got injured.
State Highway 98 is a New Zealand State Highway connecting the settlements of Lorneville (on State Highway 6 just north of Invercargill) and Dacre (on State Highway 1) in the Southland Region.
In New Zealand, the Invercargill Brewery seasonally each winter brew a rauchbier named Smokin' Bishop, made using Manuka.
Southland Boys' High School (SBHS) is an all-boys school in Invercargill, New Zealand, and has been the only one in the city since Marist Brothers was merged with St Catherines to form Verdon College in 1982.
Southland Sharks game highlights and player interviews are broadcast weekly on Invercargill-based television channel Cue TV.
A modern purpose-built facility has been built in Greymouth, while specialist campuses are also located at Auckland, Palmerston North, Hamilton, Christchurch, Reefton, Wanaka, Invercargill and Westport.