Postcrossing Blog

Another exciting report from our dear little mail carriers! Australia is so big that they’ve decided to stay a little longer there, and visit another friendly postcrosser, Smileyfflagge! Meanwhile, they’ve been on newspapers headlines and gave radio interviews… seems like everybody wants to meet them! :) Read their story below:

We left Mundoo in South Australia on Thursday 23 June 2011 and arrived in Coffs Harbour NSW on Monday 27 June 2011. Smileyfflagge got a big surprise when he opened his mailbox this morning!

Smiley lives at Upper Orara, which is about 25kms west of Coffs Harbour. There is no town of Upper Orara; it is a “locality”, a name given to a district for land record purposes, and so people have an address. There are about 800 residents in the area, and they have fat cattle farms or dairy farms. Upper Orara is very pretty and is situated in the Orara Valley.

Smileyfflagge’s little house is situated right in the middle of a huge dairy farm and sometimes the dairy cows come right up to the boundary fence to see what is going on.

Australians love BIG THINGS and the very first Big Thing built in Australia was the “Big Banana” which is in Coffs Harbour, so we went to see how big it really is.

There is a café near the Big Banana, so we looked at all the postcards they had for sale before we had our afternoon tea.

Smiley took us out into a banana plantation so we could climb a banana tree. The blue plastic bag protects the bananas.

Another day we went to look at the view over Coffs Harbour from Sealy Lookout but it was closed for refurbishment. We found a little clearing in the trees so we could take a photo of the view looking north and while we were there we met Claude and Barbara, who were visiting Coffs Harbour from Western Australia, so we had our photo taken with them. We are hoping that they will join Postcrossing after meeting us!

On Wednesday 13 July we went to the Coffs Harbour Jetty for a newspaper interview. We were met there by Gemima Harvey, a journalist with the “The Coffs Coast Advocate”, and her photographer Bruce Thomas. We had a very nice interview and Bruce took our photograph with glenasena and Smileyfflagge. The newspaper printed our story on the front page! And it was on the front page of 9 other newspapers right up the coast from Coffs Harbour to Gladstone in Queensland! And in the papers in the inland cities of Ipswich and Toowoomba in Queensland. We sent Gemima and Bruce a postcard to say “Thank You”!

On Friday 15 July we went to present our credentials to the Mayor of Coffs Harbour, Councillor Keith Rhoades. Cr Rhoades signed our travel documents for us. The Mayor is a very busy man and we are grateful that he was able to take the time to meet with us. We sent him a postcard to say “Thank You” too!

The following Friday (22 July) we went to the “ABC Radio Coffs Harbour” studio for an interview. We went on air and tried to chat with Katya Quigley from “ABC Radio Port Macquarie” on her morning program. She couldn’t hear us, even though we were talking as loud as we could, so Smileyfflagge had to do the interview on our behalf. This next photo shows us in Liz Keen’s studio in Coffs Harbour.

On Monday 25 July Smiley drove us all the way up to Ipswich in Queensland, so we could visit our dear friend crizle who has been very ill in hospital. She was very happy to see us and is now home and very much better.

The next photograph shows us at the beginning of the boardwalk at Urunga, which is about 25kms south of Coffs Harbour. The boardwalk now goes right out to the end of the training wall, and the second picture shows us waving to all our postcrossing friends in New Zealand, which is out that way somewhere.

Smiley took us to the Post Office in Urunga to meet the Postmistress, Christine. She stamped our travel documents for us.

Here we are looking out over Park Beach on a cloudy day. In the summer months Park Beach is full of people enjoying the sunshine and the surf.

Our very last photograph shows us looking out over the marina at Coffs Harbour, with Muttonbird Island in full view. Just to the left centre of the photograph you can see the Coffs Harbour Jetty, where we had our interview for the newspaper.

Now we are getting ready to leave Australia for…

Wow! Last week’s Tasty Cards contest was incredibly popular, with 427 comments! Everybody had really nice suggestions, and we’ve heard that they’re already considering your ideas for new postcards! :)

Without further ado, here are the names of the five lucky winners, chosen by Paulo’s random number generator: Calaquendi, transfer, elpis, aberline and riledup!
Congratulations, each of you will receive a pack of Tasty Cards.

No luck this time? Well… what if we told you there are more contests to come? :) Stay tuned!

PS – By the way, do you take amazing food photos? Get in touch with them, they’re looking for new creators!

Kristin (aka Volvomom) is a schoolteacher in Massachussetts, USA who shares Postcrossing with her sixth graders. Here is what she had to say to our spotlight questions:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I found out about Postcrossing in the US magazine ReadyMade. I was hooked from the start! As a child I started off with pen pals, which evolved into hosting foreign exchange students. My family has hosted from France, Bulgaria, Russia, and Norway, to name a few. Postcrossing seemed like yet another way to make the world smaller.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My main hobby is my eleven year old twin sons. They are the light of my life! Each card I send has two smiles, which represent my sons.
Of course, my username indicated my other hobby – Volvo cars. I’m passionate about Volvos. I currently am on Volvo #5. It’s at 131,000 miles, but I swear it will hit one million miles someday!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I have to give a big shout out to the staff at the Chelmsford Post Office. They’re great with the volume of mail I receive! I also have to thank my dad and mom, who pick up my mail when I’m not home!

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I have two postcards that are my favorites, out of so many, it was hard to choose.

The first is from user Thaddee_Calisson. It’s a vintage Volvo ad. I have this card framed and hanging in my home. It’s classic – in French and a Volvo. What more could I ask for?

The second card is an official from Anna in Sweden. What’s unique about this card is it was part of three cards. The other two cards went as officials to other users – one in China and one in Finland. I loved that I was part of a world puzzle!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I love meeting people from all parts of the globe and hearing their unique stories. Each time I receive a postcard I am reminded of the human experience.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about education. I am a Spanish teacher to middle school students. Next year I will be teaching a World Cultures class once a week, so if there are any other teachers in the Postcrossing world who would be interested in working with me on this project, please let me know! I strive to teach my students tolerance and understanding, as it is a necessity in today’s world. Postcrossing is helping me do that with them. Thank you for that opportunity!

So August is here, and as promised, we have another contest for you! This one is sponsored by Tastycards.co, who kindly offered to send us 5 packs of their delicious postcards to give away.

How could we say no to this irresistible fusion of food, photography and postcards?

Tasty Cards feature mouthwatering pictures of food, from appetisers to desserts, taken by their talented photographers. The recipe used to make each postcard is on the back, and you can pick the language (English, Swedish and German available). Don’t worry, the cards are big (125 × 207 mm), so there’s still plenty of space to write your message!

Afraid the mail carrier will eat your brownies? Can’t send some soup across the world for a sick friend? Send it with one of these postcards! :)

To take part on this contest, visit Tastycards.co’s website and leave a comment below telling us which recipe you think they should add to their collection! Comments will be accepted until August 14th 11:59pm (GMT), and on the next day we’ll pick five winners at random. Good luck!

PostEurop is once again hosting their annual competition to choose the best EUROPA stamp of the year!

As some of you might know, the theme for 2011 is Forests, in honour of the current International Year of Forests.

Here is a small selection of the stamps in the run-up:

Picking the best one is going to be a tough job, there are so many nice designs, don’t you think?

To vote, go to the competition page and pick your favorite! You have to hurry though, the deadline ends on August 7th.

PS – Which one did you choose?