Letters sent from Taranaki to addresses around the country took up to 15 days to arrive.

﻿If you tend to leave sending birthday and Christmas cards to the last minute, be warned: snail mail appears to be stuttering to a standstill.

In a quest to find out exactly how fast, or slow, the postal service is, reporters Catherine Groenestein and Jane Matthews sent letters from Hawera in Taranaki to destinations ranging from Kaitaia to places as far afield as Invercargill.

None of the letters arrived within NZ Post's target of delivering 95 per cent of Standard Post mail within three working days after it was posted.

ANDREA MANSFIELD / FAIRFAX NZ According to NZ Post letter volumes in New Zealand are declining by 8-11 per cent or a million letters a week.

It took a staggering 15 days for Kadii Irwin of Kaitaia to receive her letter, the same length of time it took for Cameron Leslie of Christchurch's letter to be delivered.

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A letter posted to an Hawera address, which was less than 200 metres away from the postbox it was mailed from, took eight days to arrive, yet another letter went from Hawera to Winton, near Invercargill, in the same amount of time.

GETTY IMAGES "Your letters should have all been delivered to their different addresses, taking up to three working days after posting," a NZ Post spokesperson said.

The trial mailout, on April 4, coincided with a spate of severe and significant weather across the country throughout early April, and this may have delayed the post, a NZ Post spokesperson said.

A dozen letters were posted outside the Hawera Postshop at 4.35pm. This box was cleared at 4pm that day, a NZ Post spokesperson said. It was deemed too wet for the box to be emptied on April 5, so our letters were not sent on their way until the next day.

"When it was cleared on Thursday, April 6, your mail would have been transported to Palmerston North overnight for processing. From there your letters would have been dispatched to their onward destinations the following day."

SCOTT HAMMOND/FAIRFAX NZ Make sure you get those birthday cards sent well in advance.

Letters were sent to people in Kaitaia, Auckland, Coromandel, Opotiki, New Plymouth, Stratford, Hawera, Patea, Wellington, Motueka, Christchurch and Winton.

We also wrote to NZ Post asking for someone to get in touch when they received it.

They never replied. The answers to questions for this story were supplied via email.

JANE MATTHEWS / FAIRFAX NZ These letters were posted in Hawera on April 4, taking up to 15 days to reach their final destination.

Length of time it takes to post a letter by snail mail from Hawera in Taranaki to 10 destinations in New Zealand:

NORTH ISLAND

* Kaitaia - 15 days

ANDREA MANSFIELD/STUFF Letters sent from Taranaki around the country all failed to meet NZ Post's delivery time standards.

* Auckland - 7 days

* Coromandel - return to sender after 17 days

* Opotiki - 7 days

* Stratford - 6 days

* Within Hawera - 8 days

* Wellington - 6 days

SOUTH ISLAND

* Motueka - 6 days

* Christchurch - 15 days

* Winton - 8 days

Rose Bishop received her letter in Motueka on April 10, the same day Schariona Parker-Potoi got hers in Wellington, and Lorraine Kelsen in Stratford received her copy.

"Got your beaten up letter today. It was packaged in a plastic bag and looked like it had been around the world before ending up in my letterbox," said Kelsen.

Hildegarde Groenestein's letter arrived in Auckland on April 11, and the next day letters were delivered to Lynette Smith in Hawera, Brenda Mee in Winton and Nina Phillips in Opotiki.

Groenestein wasn't impressed, saying: "That's ridiculous, that's quite a long time."

We withdrew two of the letters from the trial due to technical hitches. The New Plymouth letter inadvertently had the wrong number on it and was probably delivered to a neighbour (whom we were unable to contact) and our letter recipient in Patea turned out to be away for two weeks and we were unsure what happened to the letter. One letter arrived back from Coromandel on April 21 with a yellow sticker on it.

"Your letters should have all been delivered to their different addresses, taking up to three working days after posting," the NZ Post spokesperson said.

"We do our best to deliver mail safely and on time, so it is very disappointing to hear of these delays. We regret and apologise for any items being delivered outside our service standards."

None of the people we wrote to send letters any more, although some still send birthday cards. It's a nationwide trend. NZ Post said letter volumes had virtually halved in the past decade, and were in steep decline.

"This is a decline of 8 – 11 per cent a year or a million letters a week. NZ Post is modernising the way we deliver to match future demand as we expect these volumes to continue to decline. One of the ways we are doing this is by introducing alternative day delivery, where standard mail is delivered every second day, in major towns and cities," NZ Post said.

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