Pianos and Painted Horses

CWCT Day 8

Roger did all the hard work today, making up for not having had reliable navigation over the past week. I waved him off from the campground in Wellington to slog out the final 30km of the CWCT and, after a bout of tent drying and packing, set about doing nothing much at all other than making super dooper sure that I collected all our cold goods from the fridge on the way out of the caravan park.

With time to kill, I went to see the Piano Museum in Wellington. Alas, it was closed and I think had been so for quite some time. So here's a little snippet of what I didn't see, but could glean from peeking in the windows and reading the notices blue-tacked to the glass.

The golden era of pianos started when Mr Sebastian Erard perfected and patented the mechanism of the pianoforte in 1821. Prior to that the speed and expression of pianists was limited by the slower and clunkier action of the pianos of the day. Sebastian's 'double escapement' allowed both greater speed and much more expression, and the action is still used in grand pianos today.

The golden era of pianos ended with the introduction of electrification in manufacture after WW1. this mean that simplified pianos could be mass produced and (shock! horror!) everyday workers could afford their own piano.

The pianos in the museum, so the window informed me, were made by "those brilliant and innovative makers who achieved Golden Medallions in international competitions." Now I'm not quite sure exactly what that meant (are there competitions for building pianos?) but apparently the world of piano playing competitions is but a facade for the world of competitive manufacturing of competition pianos where reputations rise and fall on who can get which famous pianist to choose their piano to play on. Who knew?

Back to the more mundane world of the CWCT.

I found myself in the lamentable position of yet again waiting for someone in Geurie, but this time I was much better prepared and had brought a book. Roger made it to Geurie in exactly 3 hours, and was very proud of himself for having predicted his time and speed to the minute.

Central West Cycle Trail done and dusted.

We didn't hang around to pat ourselves on the back. Instead we ate a disgusting lunch of stale bread rolls and the last of the prodigal cheese before hopping in the car to get on our way to wherever we were going to spend the night en route to Sydney.

In Orange we went for a quick walk around the street, had a quick coffee in the park, and went for a quick drive to look at the autumn colours. Orange has the distinction of being the snowiest city (as distinct from town) in Australia, which wasn't necessarily saying much seeing as most of Australia isn't known for high (or any) snowfalls. There was no snow in Orange, but the wind blew rivers of leaves across the streets which was good enough for us.

Autumn colours in the street. Bicycles taking a well-earned rest.

It would be terribly remiss of me not to mention the 'gilded spheres' scattered through the park and streets in the centre of Orange. An information board informed me that the spheres represent the path of an old waterway beneath the streets of Orange, and woe betide they should be called Golden Balls, lest the coarser elements in Orange should be encouraged to make lewd jokes.

They're even visible in satellite view on Google Maps, if you care to look. Not visible from Google Maps are the lewd messages scribbled in black marker on certain spheres. No, I'm not going to show you. If you wish to sink to that level you can go to Orange and find them yourself.

We snubbed both Orange and Bathurst on the basis of being far too expensive for a traveling stop, and instead booked a $50 donga in Bayley for the night. I'd never heard of Bayley before, but on arrival we went for a quick drive around town and discovered not one but two large industries (Nestle Purina and Sea-Link), and a busy, bustling little community.

The park manager arrived at the office in the manner of all caravan park managers who are trying to do a dozen things at once as well as tracking down the clean towels that haven't arrived on time. "Sorry I'm late, I've just finished painting the horses!"

For the price of a powered tent site we stayed in a worker's dongs, which was the best tent we never stayed in with everything we needed and a camp kitchen just around the corner to boot. We tossed dice for the top bunk and I had the dubious honour of spending the night at altitude but it was better than spending the night in a tent as temperatures dropped rapidly as the sun went down.

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