THE STAMP STAYS WITH THE CACHE, IT IS NOT FOR SWAP. Please note: cache is temporarily a bison without stamp
Strawberry Hills is a tiny locality not far from the centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, located within the suburb of Surry Hills. The two main buildings of note in Strawberry Hills are the pub, and the post office - HQ for the state of New South Wales.
The first organisation of a Postal service in Australia commenced in 1809 with the appointment of the first Postmaster of New South Wales, in Sydney. He was an ex-convict, Isaac Nichols, who took the post operating from his home in George Street, Sydney. His main job was to take charge of letters and parcels arriving by ship, to avoid the chaos of people rushing onto the ships when they arrived. He would pick up the mail and then post a list of recipients outside his house, and advertise them in the Sydney Gazette. The people listed could collect their letters by paying the fixed price of a shilling per letter, with parcels costing more depending on how heavy they were.
The Postal Act of 1825 allowed the governor to fix postage rates and appoint Postmasters outside Sydney, enabling the first organised Australian postal service. Letter deliveries began in 1828 and posting boxes first appeared in 1831. Stamps were not required in those days, as it was the person who received the mail, not the person who had sent the mail, who paid for the letter!
Until the 1960s the longest, and the world's longest, overland mail route was Meekatharra to Marble Bar, Western Australia which took seven days. The current longest overland route is Norseman, Western Australia to Border Village, South Australia: 1,460 km (910 mi). The longest air service delivers to remote communities in the outback covering 1,790 km (1,110 mi) over two days. The two most isolated postboxes are located on a dive platform on the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland and another 217 km (135 mi) from Onslow, Western Australia, 32 km (20 mi) from the nearest customer. The highest Post Office is located in Perisher Ski Resort at 1720m above sea level.
The post office building in Strawberry Hills is a large recently refurbished building, which was valued at $170m in 2013. Almost any competition in NSW will be sent to a Locked Bag GPO address, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2010. Australia Post is considered very reliable, but has been facing cost pressures in recent years, similar to most other territorial postal services across the world. The cost of sending a standard letter across Australia has doubled in the past 10 years, now costing $1.
Congrats to MikeRobinson for FTF and Pumpkin67 for STF!
There is no data coverage here - so please have everything loaded before you set off.
Dogs are welcome, but please clean up after them and put waste in the bins provided
Placed with the permission of the The Forest of Marston Vale.