Thank you Ian, Rosemary, Nicki, Martin. I should have mentioned for those interested in the birdy byways of this region, particularly the non-Canberran, that the popular birdwatching venue of Campbell Park straddles two provinces: ‘Campbell Park Proper’, administered by the Department of Defence, and an adjoining area of Canberra Nature Park, managed by the ACT. It is the purpose of the fence under discussion to separate those two, a kind of Hadrian’s Wall erected by local authorities to mark the point of entry into ACT affairs from an area the official concern of Australia in the broader sense.
Looking a little further into the structure, I note, as Martin has indicated, that it is not named for a Senor Cavaletti, but comes from a word for a (originally inferior) horse. My guess is that the word was plural for logs laid on the ground to train horses. This from Yahoo Answers:
Clearly a “Cavaletti GATE” is borrowed from the equestrian term and is something quite different. Here the ACT’s urban planners are surely up with World Best Practice. This from their convenient manual on the internet:
Here in Canberra, users of outdoor spaces are so well looked after.
From: Nicki Taws [
Sent: Friday, 30 March 2012 6:19 AM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] WTE in Campbell Park
A cavaletti is a useful structure for allowing pedestrian/ horse/ mt bike access but preventing trail bike or other vehicle access.
