The Postie

The New Zealand Post Office, or Postie, as it's known, is quite different from our own.

Here are a few photos and information about the differences.  

This is the post box outside Summerland Primary School. It's where we mail many of our letters. The mail carriers (called Posties) do not pick up mail at your home. They only deliver it. 

The regular domestic mail stamps are 70 Kiwi cents.   Right now, that's about 46 U.S. cents.  I'm also showing an international (suitable to send a letter to the U.S.) stamp. Other international stamps may be more or less.

This is a picture of a cabinet, located next to one of our local playgrounds (Espalier) to which the mail truck delivers the mail. The Postie will then pick up the mail from this cabinet and deliver it to the houses in this area. 

Another shot of the same cabinet from the other side. I did a post once on how fond Kiwi's are of painting murals and such. Well, here's another good example of how they beautify their surroundings. 

Here is a Postie in action on a gloomy, drizzling day. Right now, mail is delivered to our area on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Other areas received their mail on other days.

One day, I walked over to the post box by the school to mail a letter. I knew that I was getting my letter to the box just before the 2:00 p.m. pick up time which is stated on the post box. I noticed when I got there that there was a courrier van parked next to the box and the driver was clearly waiting until 2 pm. I learned then that the Post Office here uses private couriers to do some of it's pick ups and deliveries, rather than having to maintain a larger organization to do all the work. Very different than in the U.S. 

This is the combination Kiwibank, (the two tellers on the left end) and the Postie. They also do passport photos here and you can pay some bills, like power and water.  -djf