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Kōrero: Mail and couriers

Rural delivery mail

Audio file

The many small farming settlements in New Zealand have relied on the rural delivery service for over a hundred years. This farmer in the Ruapehu district clears the newspapers, letters and parcels in his rural delivery mailbox, in the 1940s.

Listen to rural delivery man Doug Wilson talk about his 100-kilometre daily run around the Taihape back country in 1985.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Reference: 18377

Image: Alexander Turnbull Library, Making New Zealand Centennial Collection (PAColl-3060), MNZ-2098-1/4;F

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Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Tim Shoebridge, Mail and couriers – Mail in the 20th century, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/speech/23054/rural-delivery-mail (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Tim Shoebridge, i tāngia i te 12 April 2010.