The gates and fences found around the area have a peculiarly quaint charm about them, and I'm certain to feature many more as I (un)cover the rural roads of the Midlands. I wonder what or whom they are supposed to keep out, for many are in a crazy state of disrepair - the locks often broken or rusted to a condition where no key is likely to turn the cylinder and release the hasp.
My fascination with gates goes back to my (much) younger days when I would be taken to visit farming friends and relatives. Often riding in the back of a farm vehicle or bakkie, we kids would jump out on the approach to a gate, and race to be the first to open the way for the vehicle to pass along the road. These gates were primarily on farmlands where cattle were ranched, and usually below the gate would be a grid of iron bars to act as further deterrence to cattle, should some young 'un forget to close the gate in their haste to catch up and jump back aboard the now passed through bakkie.
Having come to the Midlands from a life in the city the term of 'gated communities' is a little (although deliberately) misapplied here. The somewhat lower levels of crime around these parts take some adjustment, and whilst complacency should never take over I guess, I'm learning to lower my guard just a little.
I recall that a keen photographer family friend would often travel inland from the coast in search of interesting cloud formations. I'm beginning to understand that. I think too that the rickety gates and the thin criss cross lines of the aerial telephone wires add definite visual interest to this scene of rural tranquillity - in a 'Man was here' kind of way!
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