Letter mailed to address in Australian city takes over 10,500-mile detour
Mix-up from mail service stems from use of the abbreviation "NSW" for the Australian state of New South Wales
December 18, 2024
A resident of Penarth, a town in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, was recently left puzzled when he recieved a letter which was actually meant for an address over 10,500 miles away in Australia.
Over the weekend, Keith Georgiou opened his mailbox to find a letter intended for Penrith, a city in New South Wales, Australia, the BBC reported.
The mix-up stemmed from the use of the abbreviation "NSW" for the Australian state, leaving only one word on the envelope that corresponded with Georgiou's actual address.
He saw from the envelope that it had been posted from the Exeter area.
"How it got to Penarth instead of Australia is a joke, isn't it," the 60-year-old said.
"It's obviously gone through a number of sorting offices and no-one has picked it up," he said. "It's got the airmail sticker, everything correct on it, and it ends up in south Wales. It's not even gone to Penrith [in Cumbria]."
This isn't the first time Georgiou has receieved misdirected mail destined for another address, but he said this week's discovery was ironic.
He hinted at the recent news regarding the British mail service, Royal Mail, where the organisation faced a £10.5 million for missing delivery targets.
Royal Mail, which is being taken over by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, said that while mistakes were rare, they were not uncommon.
"Even the postman delivering it to the house, you'd have thought he'd have gone 'hang on a second'," he said. "It's just not the same address. It's sad that it's got this far."
Georgiou has now re-posted the letter – having written a note on it informing Royal Mail of the mistake.
"Hopefully it doesn't return back here!" he said.
Royal Mail said: "We deliver up to 35 million letters a day during December and occasionally mistakes happen.
"It appears that on this occasion a letter addressed for Penrith has been mistakenly read as Penarth... usually, any errors made by mail sorting machines are picked up by our team, but rarely, they are not noticed in time."
