Mail delivery driver Gaye Nicholls travels 3,000 kilometres a week in the New South Wales outback to make sure people get their Christmas deliveries on time.

Ms Nicholls covers the area of the Central Darling district in the state's south-west, driving to outback stations separated by thousands of kilometres of bush.

Her job involves driving in a four-wheel-drive vehicle often for 12 hours at a time, on rough outback roads to deliver general mail and groceries to customers who may not see another person for months at a time.

Ms Nicholls says she loves her job because of the sense of freedom and wilderness all around her.

"It's an absolute privilege to be going out into that country to see it in all its changes and nuances on a very, very close basis," she said.

"I call it my four-wheel-drive challenge because you have to have four-wheel-drive. I'm often off-track, and even scrub-bashing if I've got to get around bogs and things, and it's actually not distance but it's really like an arduous challenge."

Mail delivery driver Gaye Nicholls, making her rounds in outback NSW. ( By Jenia Ratcliffe, ABC Open )

This year Ms Nicholls says she has delivered some unusual parcels for Christmas and an extra driver had to be hired to manage the workload.

"It's a very exciting and important time, there's a massive increase in parcels and because there's so much online business everyone can get their shopping all around the world through their internet," she said.

"So you're getting parcels of all sorts of shapes and sizes for the months leading up to Christmas. Sometimes I'm taking swimming pools and furniture and double beds and all sorts of extraordinary things out there."

She says people love to see her when she delivers groceries to the homesteads, rather than leaving the perishables in the post box at the gate.

"I have this wonderful meaningful contact with people on a sporadic basis, it's nothing that's determined, it just happens as the need arises," she said.

"So you build up really lovely relationships, we just stand and have a nice chat and catch up. I've become part of their lives and they've become part of mine. I've made wonderful friendships."

Ms Nicholls's predecessor in the job, Gordon Vincent, made deliveries for 30 years and received an Order of Australia medal for his work.

ABC Open went on the road for a day with Gaye Nicholls. Watch the video here.