Tuesday, September 27, 2011

More road trip stuff

En route to Esperance last Monday we stopped over for a look at the Wagin Historical Village which has the usual exhibits of tractors, machinery, schoolrooms and other shops of old. It is unfortunate that Wagin doesn’t get many tourists and the only person in the ‘Village’ was an elderly volunteer collecting the entry fee. In other more visited touristy places we have visited in various parts of the world each point of interest was ‘manned’ and an interesting story was told.

This is a pic of an Australian invention in the machinery shed. It is a mobile circular saw...the blade covered by a bicycle tyre. It was used for land clearing and was, as it looks, quite dangerous. The blade could be turned to horizontal for lopping trees or vertical for cutting firewood etc. There were reports of the blade digging in and chasing the operator around in a big circle. My uncle had one...for how long I don’t recall.
Another exhibit was a steam stationary engine which, when I was a young fella, was in a house yard at the next farm to my grandparents’ farm. I don’t know why country museums have to paint exhibits in gaudy colours?
Further down towards Esperance is the town of Ravensthorpe. Through the town is a long hill of a 10% gradient and large ore bearing road trains have great difficulty getting over the hill some needing a pull by a tractor.
It is rare that Kev gets a break, but I have been pleased by the assistance the carpet company which laid the carpet at our unit is offering. A couple of days after the man laid the carpet I saw a small mark on the carpet. I dampened a clean cloth and gave the spot a gentle rub....it dried worse. I was not sure whether the layer had dropped some glue and wiped it off or I had brought in some dirt on a shoe. I went to the company seeking information on what I should use to try and remove the stain. To my surprise they told me they would send down their fixit man to take care of it either by cleaning it or replacing that piece of carpet. Unbelievable!

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