by Donnie Hayden
© 2014, all rights reserved
Like many mailboxes the world over, many here are unique and suggest some of the personality of those they belong to.
I love the post card mailbox shown in the picture! 🙂
But since our short time here in Australia, at least here in Camden NSW Australia, I noticed the mailboxes are quite low to the ground. Having the type of perspiring mind, I mean inquiring mind that I do, 🙂 I wanted to know why?
I asked several people including our hosts for a reason. They did not know the answer. Along with my question about the mailboxes, I wanted to know how the mail is distributed here and if our hosts had ever seen their mail delivered. In the two years or so since Johnathan and Caitlin have lived here, neither had ever seen their mail delivered. It was just a matter of never being here or noticing when it was dropped off.
This is a really laid-back area. They are not so focused on the mail delivery as say, we in the United States might be. I know when our mail is delivered and sometimes, I wait for it and from time to time, even say “hello” and/or “thank you” to our mail person.
By the way, I’m sorry to use the politically correct crap word “person” which does not distinguish whether or not the deliverer is male or female. OK, I get the “equality thing,” but I’m glad I am am a man and that my wife is a woman and she’s pretty OK with it too. And our mail “person” is a woman. I call her our mail lady and she likes it.
In the pictures shown thus far, the mailboxes are approximately two and half to three feet off the ground. That’s a little low for the postal delivery vehicles in the United States that distribute mail is rural areas like where we live in the country. In this area of Australia, I have not seen any mailboxes attached to the homes. Each are about 5-10 feet from the curb of the street.
Well, as it happened and just the other day, I was outside when it was mail time. My mystery has been solved! 🙂
The scooter the driver is on, actually looks like something a child would drive as it is, pretty small. I’m sure it is great on gas here and/or natural gas. Natural gas is big here and many of the public transportation buses we saw in Sydney have signs above them that read: Powered By Natural Gas.
Most likely the other reason this vehicle is small is because, the driver actually drives up on the lawn, pulls the mail from the two side bags on the scooter and then drives to the next address. No tracks or treadmarks were left in anyone’s lawn that I could see. And the driver wearing rain gear because of it having rained this day. The ground was soft. So this scooter with mail and rider did not appear heavy enough to even leave a dent in anyone’s yard.
I am not sure how newspapers or magazines are delivered here. See round tube in picture #1 above.
Also, I’m not sure what happens if there are large packages as the mailboxes are quite small. I do think the driver in the picture actually delivered to the house, perhaps a larger package then what would fit in the box. I was down the street when I snapped the picture. The driver shutoff the scotter and was just getting back on when I took it.
Anyway, mail delivery in Australia seems quite efficient, the scootter was pretty quiet and overall, I think it’s pretty awesome!
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