Leonora Spark (NZ Post rural mail delivery) puts the Whanganui Midweek into the first mailbox on her Mangamahu mail run.
Riding with Mangamahu’s NZ Post mail run driver Leonora Spark, and meeting the farming community, was an unforgettable day on January 10.
With a 5.30am start for Spark, sorting mail at the NZ Post Mail Centre in Whanganui and picking up parcels from courier companies, it was 7am when I met her at her first mailbox drop-off in Fordell.
Near here lives Chester, a white fluffy Chow Chow dog, featured on the Farmlands Dog of the Year calendar, I missed seeing him on the day.
Fordell was well-known for its stock sales, but the yards have since been removed, with only remnants left to remind of their former glory.
As we pass two cock pheasants flying up in front of the car, Spark recounts her time owning the run. “I bought RD16 run in 2003, the mail used to come out to the Mangamahu Hall, via the RD7 run.
“When Trevor Woon retired from RD7, I bought the run, thinking it wouldn’t be that much extra work — famous last words.
“I had to start coming into Whanganui to sort the mail. The mileage increased up to 240km per day. It means a lot of vehicle servicing and replacing tyres. We lived at Mangamahu, so it was an extra hour each way. In 2015 we sold up and moved to live in Fordell,” she said.
Spark has carried a variety of goods, ranging from a clothesline, flag pole, home gym, and artificial legs, to a set of heavy truck springs.
Metal roads seemed to become the norm, branching off in all directions with the worst metal being at the end of Denlair Road. Even new tyres can cut out or go flat, but with the road noise, you don’t know you have a flat tyre. Because of this, Spark installed tyre pressure sensors on each wheel, which display the tyre pressure on a gauge on the dashboard.
At the end of some roads, forestry trucks could approach, so Spark announces when she is coming by RT, “Postie marker one to two” and the trucks let her know how to arrange to pass each other.
Delivering the mail to the fabulous and extensive Paloma Gardens could see Clive Higgie moving his donkey, but not this day.
“I love this job, this is my community,” says Spark. “I lived out at Mangamahu for 19 years, and in Fordell for eight years. I know the people, and I love the contact with everybody. The people really, really like getting their Midweeks.
We dodge a mob of sheep and manage to turn the Postie car around on a sixpence, after talking to a young farmer who is typically polite, and friendly with a big smile.
We get to within 30km of Hunterville before the Eastern end of the mail run, now being in the Rangitikei District. Then we return to cross Wyley’s bridge, number 46, which marks the entrance to Mangamahu Road.
A former dairy farm is now planted in maize and makes quite an impression on the landscape.
Travelling on a hot day, when Whanganui reaches 29C, you can add another 4 to 5C in the sheltered valleys out at Mangamahu.
We reach Polson’s bridge, which was replaced after the old bridge was washed away in the 2006 flood. The Polson’s homestead was washed away in the 2004 floods (since rebuilt on higher ground) and the mail was delivered by rowing a dinghy across the river for the first three weeks in 2006. Then a flying fox was in operation for four weeks, until the new bridge went up.
Lunchbreak is at Mangamahu Hall, which has a room with an old pigeonhole cabinet that was housed at the former shop next year which had the NZ Post agency for sorting the mail.
A local artisan has a display of his products in a nearby shed with the neatest stacks of kindling I have ever seen.
I called into the former Mangamahu Hotel, one of the few original hotels still standing in New Zealand. I was warmly welcomed by owner Mere Keating and her partner Pete. Keating bought the hotel in 1975, it was built as the first iteration in 1894 for the Lacey family but suffered a fire in 1910. The youngest Lacey daughter came to the centennial of the Mangamahu School in the 1990s. The top part of the building was rebuilt to what it is today.
A Toyota van is strategically parked in the gardens and was owned by Neville Groves (his first van) a brake specialist in Whanganui who donated it as a courtesy van for the hotel.
Keating is a craftsperson who makes ready-to-wear or made flax products under the Meremade Fashion Kete & Potae label. She grows her own flax in several pā harakeke (flax gardens) with different varieties of flax in them.
“I harvest the flax in summer, and process it by cutting it to length and softening it,” she said. It was poignant that Keating was wearing a woven flax hat she had created herself when I met her.
She has planted flax with the Department of Conservation on land going towards the Mangamahu bridge.
We drive onto Creek Road and we pass the site of one of New Zealand’s first hydroelectric dams, which was used to provide the lights for the pub. The dam blew out after a couple of years.
Then we stop to feed a horse grazing in a paddock with carrots Spark has grown - she has a soft spot for animals.
Over to the beautifully-maintained Managamahu School, a kiwifruit planting, the longest wrapped baleage I have ever seen, a hump in the road (a cattle stop) with a letterbox poised on top, where Spark deftly balances her car to reach into the mailbox, and a buzzy bee-decorated mailbox.
Now heading towards Fields Track, Ohakune we pass a farm now planted in manuka for beekeepers. Leonora points out paddocks where Australian stock horses, which the Collins family have been breeding for some years — mainly for farm work, to compete in polo-crosse and horse sports events.
A long way from Whanganui now and we are looking at a natural amphitheatre with huts and markers for dog trialling, a sport Spark has been officiating at for 20 years but now gets to enjoy watching.
Community is important for farmers and Spark is heavily involved with Rural Women NZ, a national charitable organisation with a focus on rural communities. “Our Fordell/Mangamahu branch, being the only Whanganui branch left, puts a lot of its efforts into the Education Fund that we use to help out with young people taking the next step in their educational future,” said Spark.
“The last few years we have helped mainly with providing school uniforms and IT equipment for pupils starting out at high school. Rural families have to shoulder a lot of extra costs with school and school-related activities as there is a huge amount of travel involved to get children to buses, schools, sports facilities etc.
“We try to help ease some of the financial burden on some of these families. We have had to limit our area of concern to the eastern cluster of schools involving Fordell, Mangamahu, Okoia, Aberfeldy, Whangaehu, Kaitoke and Upokongaro.
“Last year we were able to help six families to the tune of $3490. As you can imagine our fund-raising activities are ongoing, one of which is our Walk the World event in March/April. This walk has developed quite a strong following and can include up to about 50 people.”
Having passed massive papa clay cliffs and little room for a road, we turn around at the start of Burma Hill, notorious for slips. It underlines the necessity for a four-wheel-drive Postie car, and the school bus having a four-wheel-drive.
Spark points out the country-sized mailbox that two children used to be lifted into on wet days by the bus driver if mum was a bit late picking them up after the school bus (they are now over 1.8m tall.)
Just after 2pm, we arrive back at Fordell, and hats off to Spark who is so passionate about her essential job.
Thick black smoke can be seen across the city.