High gates
One of the things about being on the cattle drive was that it made me feel blind. We’d be out in the middle of a huge pasture, and Kim the rancher would say to Tim the working cowboy who was accompanying us something like: “You go on ahead over the next rise, head towards the windmill. You’ll come to a fence, then turn northwards and the gate’s a little way up there.”
Even when we got to the top of the rise, I couldn’t see a windmill, a fence or a gate. Not for half an hour. It’s partly that the gate might be a good four miles away, but it’s also that I wasn’t used to picking out details in a landscape at such long distances.
Which is why, I’m guessing, people built gates with high gate posts. So you can see them a long way off. Handy when you’re driving 50 pair of cattle and it’s getting dark.
Also handy for picturesque sunset shots.