Cunnamulla's outback postie Ruby Gamble a larrikin and a lifeline

Australia Broadcast Center

11-05-2025

A few things are certain in the outback around Cunnamulla.
Dingoes do not want pats, the next drought is never far away, and Ruby Gamble will make her deliveries.
Now in her early 70s, Ruby the outback postie has spent nearly three decades delivering mail, medicine, beer and just about anything else her remote customers need.
Cunnamulla, 750 kilometres west of Brisbane, is home to about 1,200 people spread out over a region bigger than the size of Tasmania.
Ruby's vehicle of choice — a two-wheel-drive Toyota Hilux — covers up to 10,000km a month across vast, sunbaked, bulldust-covered roads.
"They forget when they're in the bush."
The Australia Post contractor's customers live and work on isolated sheep and cattle stations the size of European countries.
Some do not see another soul all week.
That makes Ruby more than just a delivery driver — she is a lifeline.
The postie even maintained connections with her customers when devastating floods across Western Queensland earlier this year made it too dangerous to go bush, forcing her into one of the longest breaks of her 28-year career.
"I kept ringing them to make sure they're all okay, and if they need food or anything," she said.
Now that the waters have receded, Ruby is back on the road.
Ruby's three-year-old ute is already pushing half a million kilometres.
It has been modified with an extra-long tray to carry hay bales — and the occasional case of beer.
"Just about ready to trade it in," Ruby said.
She and her late husband Col took up the delivery contract in 1997 and shared the run for more than a decade, until her partner of 43 years passed away.
"The bastard handed in his rifle on the Paroo River," she said.
"We caught a heap of fish, he drank a six-pack … then he comes into the caravan, towel around him, throws it open and says, 'Anyhow Ruby, I'm the only one who knows how to find all the good fish holes.'
"I told him, 'Shut up, you skiting bastard' — they were the last words I ever spoke to him."
Within 10 minutes, Col had died from a massive heart attack.
Ruby took a break from work to grieve after Col's death while friends filled in on the mail run.
But before long, her customers came calling.
"After a couple of months [they said], 'Ruby, we need you out here,'" she said.
"They made me get out of bed and keep going."
Joanne Woodcroft, the licensee and self-titled postmistress of the Cunnamulla Post Office, said Ruby was part of the town's identity.
"Ruby and her husband Col, stalwarts of the post office … the fabric of our community," she said.
Fourteen years since Col's death, Ruby has not remarried, despite encouragement from her kids.
"One of 'em says, 'Mum, you know, we were never meant to be on our own and if you find somebody else that's OK with us,'" she said.
"I said, 'You bastards have only been here four days and I can't put up with you … how am I gonna put up with someone else?'"
Seven hours a day in the car gives Ruby a chance to reflect on the adventures she's had on her mail run.
"A few years ago, I got bogged — no phones out there, I can't get anybody on the UHF," she said.
Thinking quickly, she hit SOS on her GPS and, 30 minutes later, spotted a jet circling above.
"I'm looking for a tree to hide under, thinking, 'What have I done?'" Ruby said.
Rescued and brought to safety, Ruby inadvertently went about the rest of her day without telling the authorities she was OK.
"The police caught up with me later that day at the pub," she said.
"They had called my son to ask if I was on any medication, he told 'em, 'Yep — VB and Panadol.'"
After nearly three decades, Ruby is showing no signs of slowing down.
But of an afternoon, odds on you'll find her enjoying a VB at the old Billabong Hotel in town, ready to share a tale from the road.
"It's been a good life, I wouldn't swap it for anything."