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 For this postie, there are no dogs to worry about or busy roads to cross; rather, it could be a mob of kangaroos on the airstrip or getting behind time by delivering some urgently needed spare parts to a remote property. But whatever the season, the same determination applies: to deliver the mail on time.
"The biggest problem we usually have is the friendliness of the people we deliver
to - sometimes, we land the plane and get yakking and instead of swapping the
mail bags over we simply climb back into the cockpit with the same bag. Though
a quick radio message from the cattle station homestead usually turns us around
before we have gone too far," explained the pilot from Cape York Air services,
which operates the world's longest mail run out of Cairns
in the Tropical North of Queensland,
Australia.
The region is so vast, the only effective means of delivering the mail is by the
use of planes to service the fewer than 20,000 permanent residents in the sparsely
populated area which covers 133,500 square km. By comparison, Japan
with population of 120 million is only three times its size, while the combined
area of Great Britain is barely 100,000
square km larger.
Some of the daily runs are more than 900km round trip and involve sectional flights of 40 minutes or more. Then again, over the Normanby River flood plain between Lakeland Downs and Kalpowar, it is barely one kilometre between airstrips.
"In the wet season, properties can be cut off by road for weeks on end, and if it were not for the aerial mail run, the people out there would be left without this basic community service that city people take for granted," the pilot said.
Tourists can now ride the mail plane for a day and visit some of the most isolated
cattle properties in Australia, historic
gold mining towns or natural features such as the Undara lava tubes which were
formed more than 190,000 years ago.
On hand at the various stops to explain the many natural wonders of the region are members of the Gulf Savannah Guides Association. This is a network of local people who are master interpreters with an intimate knowledge of some of the more spectacular natural attractions in the Gulf Savannah region.
Since the guide system was introduced about ten years ago, there has been a change
in visitor habits by encouraging tourists to this largely ignored area of Queensland
to get out and explore the frontier country.
From the dusty airstrip outside of town, the aerial postie points his twin-engine
aircraft into the wind for the flight back to Cairns.
The tourists on board already inquiring where the mail run will take him tomorrow.
The mail run follows a different route each day and always there are outstanding attractions to see - small country settlements, Aboriginal communities, old gold mining centres, and isolated homesteads set in huge cattle stations.
The service departs every Monday through to Friday. Monday departs at 8:30am and comes back around about 3pm in the afternoon. Tuesday through Friday departs at 7:15am and comes back between 12.30 and 4:30 in the afternoon. As a guide, the prices are as follows:
Monday: Laura - Palmerville
Tuesday: Chillagoe - Georgetown
Wednesday: Coen - Heathlands
Thrusday: Musgrave - Strathburn
Friday: Croydon - Normanton
For the ultimate one-day aerial adventure, join the aerial mail service on a Saturday in the dry season (April through to October) for the Top of the Cape Tour. Flying at barely 300m, the plane follows the coast, allowing spectacular views of the coral reefs and rainforests. Other points of interest include Cooktown, the coloured sands at Cape Flattery, Princess Charlotte Bay, the historic ruins of Somerset, the very tip of mainland Australia at Cape York and a bus tour of Horn Island (the airport for Thursday Island). On the return, the plane lands at two or three of the regular "mail run" stops to deliver the mail and freight to cattle properties.
Website: http://www.capeyorkair.com.au
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