Marvao

After a long break since our last work exchange, it was a really good feeling rolling into the bus station in Portalegre, Portugal, knowing that our hosts would be there to pick us up. Our home for the next couple of weeks included our British hosts, Irene and Nick, their three girls, burping champion Meggie the dog, two horses and Frankie the foal.


In exchange for food and very comfortable accommodation in a separate studio apartment, we spent our mornings working on a variety of jobs, mainly constructing a fence for the planned jumping arena for the horses. This involved digging holes in hard and rocky ground with a pick axe and spade (think prison workline minus the cotton picking songs!), cementing the posts in the holes, cutting out rails from the cleared trees, and then attaching the rails using hay-bale wire. Hard work but we were pretty satisfied with our efforts when we left - we'd completed 2 full sides of the arena, ready for the guy with the tractor to come in and level the rest of the space for the other fence sides.


In our spare time we did a lot of lounging around watching videos (tv is a wonderful thing once you've gone without it), walked around and swam in the dam/lake, rode the horses, and visited some gypsy markets where the women compete to see who can yell with the loudest and most annoying voice. We also checked out the tiny town of Marvao and its castle perched high atop a hill that can be seen from Spain, and walked back to the farm via an old cobbled path down the mountain that has been there for centuries.


Next we're off to the Czech Republic for a brief visit before meeting up with friends in Munich for some well deserved beer.

Portugal

Our first stop in Portugal was the capital Lisbon. After getting off the overnight bus, we managed to catch the first metro train of the day, which was a first for me given my normal sleeping habits. We found a room, which unfortunately was at the top of 9 flights of stairs, totalling 92 steps. After 3 days of that and I think I am the stair master....I mastered the stairs.


We found out that the cinemas in Portugal subtitle their Hollywood movies, instead of dubbing. Although this doesn't seem that big a deal, we got to see our first movies in English in months. And see them we did, I think we watched 3 in 2 days. Here, you can actually choose where you will sit in the cinema, enjoy an alcoholic beverage, and top up at intermission.

Walking down one of the main streets passing the countless shoe polishers as we went (which seems to be a tradition here!), I think I was offered drugs by 8 different people in the space of 15 minutes. I guess I did need a haircut and shave but I didn't think I was that bad.

After foolishly trying to go to the Brazilian embassy to organise our Visa's we discovered a waiting line that went out the door and literally around the block. The tail of this line was within a couple of meters of the entry, unfortunately it was headed on the scenic route before heading in. Needless to say we skipped that, and figured we'll try getting our Visas in a less, Portuguese place...say, Germany when we get there.


After a couple of days in Lisbon, we randomly headed for Evora. This turned out to be a nice little place, and we managed to catch a full blown fashion parade, and also headed to the 'Capela Dos Ossa', which translates as the Chapel of Bones. It has this name for a good reason, being that the interior is completely covered with thousands of human bones! Being here was very very creepy.


The inscription on the entrance to the chapel says (translated) 'We bones that are here, we are waiting for yours.' The idea behind this place is to remind people of their mortality, and provoke them to consider their actions in life knowing that they will ultimately end up the same as those on the wall. It certainly achieved those goals....we didn't hang around this place too long!

At one point I realised we were the only people there, and I took this video for those who are interested and game....yes pretty much everything that looks like a brick or anything is a human bone of some sort.

Our last stop in Portugal has brought us east to a small town called Rasa, near Portalegre, not far from the Spanish border. We are currently in the middle of another work exchange, and it has been nice to do some physical work again for the first time in months. The place is beautiful, with a nearby creek, barage, and an imposing castle (in Marvao) that overlooks the entire area.

A little piece of Meldgaard Heste

So this is a little bit out of order but anyway...
I found this little video clip of the horses at Meldgaard Heste (Denmark) being let out of their paddock to be fed in the barn. It was like a racetrack out there as they all tried to get pole position for the feeding...

Meldgaarde Heste and Icelandic horses

After being dropped off by a local bus at a sign by a crossroad (apparantly in the middle of nowhere), we have managed to find our way to our second help exchange - "Meldgaarde Heste", a riding and activity center near Farso, in northern Denmark.

The farm consists of ~100 acres of paddocks and woodland, and is home to Hans and Jeanette, sons Alexander and Daniel, Monty the massive (but cowardly) german shepard and sidekick Ain (who we've nicknamed shit-for-brains), 4 barn cats, chickens, a turkey, and most importantly, about 100 Icelandic horses. We're the only helpers here, but there's also another girl who works and lives on the farm (Janni).

Work wise, our days normally start around 7:30 with breakfast, then I'm off to help Janni with the morning feeding of the horses. The horses are paddocked in 4 herds - smaller horses, bigger horses, mares and skinny horses - at least that's my best guestimate from observations anyway! One by one the herds are herded into the long stable, and get their breakfast of oats (which are crushed/rolled here), chaff and pellets. The skinny herd also gets fed in the afternoon. Horse breakfast normally takes just under 2 hours, and then it's time for people smoko :-)




Lecky and I have been busy whitewashing the outside walls of the barns - this basically means we mix up buckets of lime and water, and then "paint" it on with brooms. At first it just looks like the walls are getting wet and not white at all, but once it's dried, it comes up pretty nice. We've also painted a couple of inside rooms in the barn and boiler room (where the farm heating is generated by burning woodchips). All good practice for when we actually have our own house to paint :-)

Icelandic horses have very different gaits from the horses I've ridden previously. The walk is the short and bouncy walk of a pony (not long striding like my thoroughbred Mick), the trot is even bouncier and super fast (no rising trot here!), and then they don't seem to do a slow canter - it's just up to straight out gallop.


On the weekend we tagged along on a trail ride, which was great fun despite the sore muscles that emerged in the following days. The ride took us through pretty forests with mossy floors, over molehill-studded hills and along rolling fields. We got to one such rolling field, where Hans suggested a gallop, and Lecky said, "Sure, looks like nice soft ground!" This turned out to be a case where he should have touched wood - just as we hit top speed, Hans' horse spooked sideways (at nothing, in true horse fashion), and the rest of the horses thought it would be a great idea to follow suit. I lost my stirrups but stayed on, but Lecky's horse threw in a pigroot, and off he went onto the aforementioned nice soft ground (luckily no injuries!). After we caught his horse (which had decided to bolt for the road), we were off again and made it home without any more incidents.



We also did a bit of riding on some less unpredictable vehicles - some scenic cycling to Hvalpsund, which is a little town on the coast. It was mostly uphill all the way there, so by the time we got there we were pretty stuffed and couldn't be arsed doing more than taking a few photos and looking at some realestate ads in the window. And to our great disappointment, we headed into a headwind on the way home, nullifying all the downhill action we'd been hoping for. But one positive of the ride was counting how many aluminium cans are lying on the side of the roads - you get decent money for returning them, so we might make another more purposeful trip later on to clean us up some cash....

Nybro

For the past few weeks, we’ve been working hard on our first (but not last) help exchange. We’re staying on a snowy little property in southern Sweden, near Nybro. It’s out in the middle of the forest about 15km from town, and is home to Emilie and Matthias, their two sons Matthias Jnr (16) and Robin (19), Bastian the border collie, Chikan the horse, 3 cats, 4 rabbits and a sheep. Apart from the main house, there’s a guesthouse that is rented out during the summer to guests and a massive L-shaped barn that houses the firewood, horse/sheep, cars and other things, with part of the building converted into a house for us helpers. It’s been cold – the first few weeks it snowed regularly and the temperature ranged from about -10 to 0 degrees – but now is starting to warm up more. It feels ridiculous to be saying ‘oh my god, it’s so hot!’ when the mercury climbs above 2 degrees, but with the work we’ve been doing outside it’s easy to get a sweat up.

The main project we are working on here is the building of a second guesthouse. There’s an old stone building that we are revamping using old car tyres (yes, car tyres!) packed solid with dirt and stacked on top of the original stone wall foundations. It’s hard work, so we are definitely earning our keep (despite both eating like champions)! So far we have discovered that when it’s consistently below 0 degrees, everything freezes - including dirt! In fact, the pile of dirt fill we are using to fill the tyres has to be chipped away at with a pick axe before you can fill the buckets, and you need to use a sledgehammer to smash the frozen ground and old wood on top of the stones when levelling the tyres. There are two other helpers here at the moment as well as us – Phil is another Aussie from WA, and Onofre is from Spain. So between us we’re making pretty decent progress on this little house.

In between carting buckets of dirt and packing it in tyres, we’ve had plenty of time to do a bit of exploring and have fun attempting to injure ourselves in new and interesting ways. Our hosts took us to a local ski field with toboggans, where we managed to raise the average toboggan-er age significantly. We’ve taken Chikan out riding through the snowy forests, and gone hiking along little paths to visit the horses on the adjacent property. We even spotted (and subsequently chased) a couple of moose through the woods! Of course we’ve used the sauna (at about 80deg!) and then rolled in the snow. Add to that, Robin and Matthias Jnr are thrill seekers…so Lecky just had to have a go of being dragged behind the car on a steel sleigh type apparatus after seeing the boys hard at it!











We also had the chance to got to Kalmar (the next town over) to meet Lecky’s mum’s cousin Barbara, her husband Siggie and all the subsequent family that has followed. We went to see Kalmar castle which was built in the 12th century I think, and despite many attempts by invading Danes, the castle never fell. Upon having a look around it was easy to see why…perfectly located, drawbridge and moat, massive canons, well constructed (you could live there now!) as well as several other built-in anti-sacking-by-invader mod cons.



So far Sweden has been textbook…we live in a pine forest, so with the snowfalls come picturesque photos like something out of a storybook. We went to the bakery, which was fully equipped with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Swede woman wearing a bonnet and happy disposition. If this keeps up we’ll expect to see Vikings walking around when we get to Denmark in a week or so!