6.
阅读理解
Today I am going along with Rowan Dougall,
a postman in Queensland in the far north of Australia, on his daily delivery(投递 trip. Every day, Rowan sets off with his post bags in the tail of
his little plane--not much bigger than a large family car, and flies across one
of the wildest places on Earth, Australia's Cape North, to reach the very
faraway inland areas called the Outback.
We fly just 300 metres above dangerous
crocodiles(鳄鱼) and snakes. This is one of the
longest and most expensive postman trips in the world. However, a 50-cent stamp not only gets a
letter posted to a neighbouring town, it will get it hand-delivered by flying
postman to the furthest areas of the Outback. To help with the costs, the plane
takes three or four paying local people or tourists, and I am one of them. In
the back of the plane, there is a pile of post--envelopes of all sizes,
newspapers, and a few parcels(包裹). Somehow I expected
this post to look special, maybe to include some hats or cowboy boots, but this
looks no more exciting than the post delivered to me in England. I look at some
of the names and addresses, wondering about the people who are waiting for
these letters and parcels.
Rowan's route is 2,000 km long, with 15
stops, and I get a chance to meet Sandy, who has just received an order of
clothes from a store. "I look forward to this weekly delivery," she
says, "but I do miss actually going shopping myself." Rowan is
checking the time. There are another ten stops to make before dusk(黄昏). Time to leap back on the plane and up into the air.