Rural (Roadside) Mail Boxes

Rural properties around the country can be pretty remote and off the beaten track.
The outback stations (ranches) covering millions of acres usually get mail delivery by air.
The less distant may have a central mail collection point. See pic below of mail boxes at Mongarlowe, just over the mountains from us.
Even ones like ours just off a major highway don’t have a mail box at the gate, but rather one at the end of the access road grouped together with others from the valley.
In the past these were known as roadside mail boxes or RMBs. So an address would be, for example, RMB 300, which indicated it was 300km from some designated point. The disadvantage here was every one at a specific destination had the same address, in our case, seven of us.
So most people had their names on the post boxes or delivery person would have to know which one was which.
Also people on very long roads could have large numbers depending on the district borders.
All matters concerning addresses is under the control of the a Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. They have a 180 page manual covering this subject.

Pic: Gail Wild @theveranda.shop

Some time ago our address changed from a RMB to a four digit number plus an Alpha suffix.
The system for determining address numbers in rural and semi-rural areas is based on the distance of the access point from the a specific datum point ie. in our case a major bridge. This distance is measured in metres and then divided by 10 - after which the number is then rounded to the nearest odd number (for points on the left side of the road from the datum point), or nearest even number (for points on the right side of the road).
The suffix differentiates the various properties at the same number. So 1280A Pacific Hwy, Smithville would be the first property on an access road to the right off that main road 12.8km from a specified landmark in the Smithville district.
Sounds a bit complicated but emergency services have this in their data bases so police, fire and ambulance can find people quickly.
Pity almost all GPS car navigator devices don’t. Couriers, service people and sometimes even visitors have trouble finding us.