WWOOFing at Fran's - Part 2

The Almond trees are in blossom, the skies are blue and the sun is warm,

the food is plentiful and delicious, the company leaves nothing to be desired


and, not surprisingly, I am feeling brilliant.

Living and working with everyone here is wonderful.

Working together in the garden and on projects around the farm together, preparing meals together, singing and dancing together at nights and sharing the amazingly different lives we have had is so good...we love it!

Yoga in the mornings for an hour or two has made me more flexible than I have ever been in my life, in the space of less than three weeks.

Everyone else has been here longer than I and some, Particularly Mira and Vici, are thinking of leaving soon. They are thinking of spending time in Granada.

Having just used just about all the superlatives in the English language to describe the time I am having here, one would be forgiven for being a little confused as to why I would think of leaving at all. The notion that there are many other wonderful places in the world that I have not seen draws me strongly to hit the road again. I think Granada sounds good.

WWOOFing at Fran's - Part 1

The male/female ratio has become much more healthy at 3:4, as opposed to 1:4 prior to our arrival, here at Fran's farm. There is quite a communal feeling with everyone working together and socialising.


Fran is a really nice guy entering middle age who is a wonderfully skilled Flamenco guitarist, a business man and a hobby farmer. He loves to work on the couple of hectares he has near Totana, whether it be restoring the old farm house, looking after the old Almond trees or growing veggies.

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Well for those who don't know good old "Cyclopes" , John is an ozy of the same era as my mother who worked with us on building our house and our barn. Those are the years when Kimon got to know John. He is a work-a-holic and can put his name to more buildings on this earth than anyone I know. Consequently he has a toe in many pies, so to speak. A couple of years back he "abandoned" Oz for the Spanish women and he has never looked back. I got to know him as a really young tacker, me being the young tacker that is :p, on the building site and later on the barn project. He is responsible for one of the best childhood sayings I had, "snicksta-basket", which was a wonderful inability to reproduce John's "sneaky bastard" expression. Which would always be directed at the apprentice, Kimon :p
He teaches Permaculture in Spain and has not lost his love for the Spanish women despite more than eight years among them. He is a real character and has a whole stash of great anecdotes to keep everyone going, interested and amused. A wonderful ol bastard on the whole :p

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Vici is a Spanish Girl who grew up relatively close to Totana. Incredible, she stayed with Dan Palmer and household in Melbourne for over 5 months recently and I never met her and yet here I am on the other side of the world and accidentally we run into each other. She is in her late twenties and has had a fair taste of alternative life and Permacutlure. She speaks good English, and of course perfect Spanish. She is a good Spanish teacher, a wonderfully friendly and kind person and she has a great practical "getting the hands dirty" side. A delightfully light hearted and lovely person to be around.
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Mira is a German girl who had an upbringing similar to mine in many ways. In her mid twenties, she loves painting, drawing and has a strong connection to Spain and the alternative scene there. She has a great knowledge of plants, especially those of Spanish origin. Mira's personality is very energetic, rather intense and, for some, a little too much. However I got along well with her and found a good friend, although some of us at the farm did not.

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Ola is a travel hardened girl, also in her mid twenties, who left the Ukraine on her own in her early teens for Israel where she has lived until recently. She has seen and done many things, giving her an interesting outlook on life that I got a small look into during our time together at Fran's. A much darker personality and outlook that Vici, and in someways a more realistic and down-to-earth view but a little depressing sometimes when compared to Vici's wonderful light hearted nature.

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Marie, the Swedish Engineer in her early twenties from Stockholm, was quite a "dark horse" until very late in the peace. Her personality is a lot quieter and more closed than the rest of us. She has a deep interest in Yoga and is studying engineering when not travelling. Interestingly I got to know her much better than Ola which I could not have predicted at the outset considering her closed nature initially.

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Bloom, the male that made the ratio good again, who could forget the ol boy. So much character. Always at the door, your best friend on walks and that unforgetable old mans limp from a bung hip. What a wonderful fellow.

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Me, who the hell am I? I am sure every one of my friends and family would have a markedly different response to that question. It would be a very interesting exercise. Maybe one day.

I seem to be having the problem that many photographers do, there are very few pictures of me.

Entering the home of Spanish

I only just made it to the shuttle bus to for my flight to Madrid! I had plenty of time until I decided to get a Mexican travel guide and a Latin American Spanish book. Talk about cutting it fine. I knew it would be close from square one, so I started running right away and in the end I only scraped in with a minute or two to spare. My 23kg pack turned running into a totally new experience.

I met a great guy, Ruben, who is from Madrid who was in Brussels for business, promoting NGOs in governmental planing from what I gather, and we talked for much of the trip to Madrid.

I met up with John Logos (an old friend from Oz who worked on our house with David and Kimon) and John's lady friend, Silvia. We headed for the mountains outside of Madrid, where we stayed for a few days. The house, care of Silvia's sister, is located in a snow resort village called Puerto Nabatherada a little over an hour out of Madrid.

John and I took a day trip to a village where he spends much of his time during the summer months, while Silvia studied in Madrid. He does a lot of building for people so he has many places throughout Spain that he has a share in. This little hut is one such place and we spend a great afternoon before heading back into town.

On the walk back into town I was treated to, arguably, one of the best sun set I have ever seen.

The plan was for John and I to leave for a farm in the south of Spain in a couple of days from Madrid, so it made sense for me to take Ruben up on his offer to show me around Madrid a bit.

He was open for me to come down for a few days and stay with him and see Madrid a bit. I jumped on the train in Puerto Nabatherada and enjoyed a slow ride off the heights of the snow covered mountains and met up with Ruben in the swarming night life of Madrid. There was a bit of a complication with staying with Ruben, his land lord(Juan Carlos) had decreed I was not welcome, so we arranged a hostel in the centre of Madrid. Later that evening Juan Carlos retracted that decree. I had already booked the hostel and we felt more comfortable giving Juan Carlos his space so I opted to stay at the hostel.

The Spanish love to party, so quite appropriately Ruben and I went out to the birthday party of a friend of his and enjoyed our selves until the early hours in the morning.

Once the party came to close, I jumped in a taxi with some people leaving the party for a nightclub in down town Madrid at 4:30am, with the hope of getting out near my hostel. One of the guys in the taxi didn't stop telling me how he really wanted me to get home safely for the hole time in the taxi(30 minutes or so) and I forgot which suburb I was meant to get out at. So, in my rather poor Spanish and a bit of his English, he convinced me to get out at Anton Martin :s

So there I am at 5 am somewhere in Madrid central, a little drunk, with very little other than a map of the metro, which is closed at that hour by the way. So here's me looking a the map and trying to work out which metro stop it was that I was meant to get out at. After about half and hour I remembered I needed Tirso De Molina and started asking for directions. Thankfully it turned out I was only one suburb away from Tirso De Molina. The only reason I remembered I needed to be in Tirso De Molina was because I remembered thinking of semolina :p By 6am I was in bed in the hostel. Quite an experience.

The following afternoon Ruben took me on a wonderful tour by foot and metro of Madrid, explaining much of the history behind the architecture and culture. This was a great introduction to Spain. Thanks so much Ruben.

John and I met up the following morning and took the 6 hour bus trip to Totana in the south of Spain. We were picked up from the little village of Totana and taken to a small farm nestled in the hills about 15km to the north.

Belgium in a Blink

I flew out of Italy from Pisa airport with a cheep RyanAir flight back to Belgium to spent 5 days with Kimon.



As always, Belgium was green and we even got a bit of snow.

Although it was not cold enough for the snow to settle.


Kimon organised a great day of paint ball with us and all his friends.
The paint ball place was really cool! Decaying late 18th century houses and some great open air terrain. Although I should add the quality of the paint balls was very poor which meant they broke in the gun very often and the accuracy was shite. Result: the group used over 4000 paint balls in 2 and a half hours.

Not sure if the distinct lack of bruising was due to the thick over-alls or the guns being lower powered but I can say for certain that the injuries and bruises sustained by all were fare fewer and less painful than when I played in Oz. No big purple, green and blue bruises to show off in the days following sadly :P

Kimon and I indulged in the digital entertainment a little too. We kicked back to a few episodes of 24(22 episodes to be precise), gnawed away at C.O.D. ,UO and finally COD2 and enjoyed some of they greatest music from Pink Floyd and numerous other favourites.

I made good use of the fact that Kimon's delightful KEF Reference speakers, NAD surround amp and 17" Apple laptop were in my room. Pink Floyd's "The Division Bell" album came alive, movies sucked me in like never before and games blew me away. If any of my friends remember the LANs at which I play COD with my Logitech sound system turned up...think bigger...think louder...think better :)

Sveva was much better tempered this time. I think the mood of the parents really rubs off on kids! She was a really brat last time for much of our time together. However this time we had a great time. She was so happy to see me and we had some really nice time together. Ironically this was while some of the most boring things where happening(e.g. driving in the car, waiting for the two parent shoppers to do their thing in a big department store and while walking to school).


Although only 5 days, it was worth every bit of it.

Goodbye to Italy

When I left Elisa's place in Fiesole it was snowing, although the drop down to Firenze promptly turned the snow into cold rain. A friend of Elisa's had got sick so she was, apparently, unable to pay me on the spot for the extra hours of work I had accumulated over the time WWOOFing at her place. I left my account details and she said she would put the money in in the next few days.

The bus ride San Gimignano was a bit crazy. Two cars passed the bus really fast and only half a minute later one of the cars was stopped on the Autostrada and just a little further up the second car was stopped on the side of the Autostrada as well with the driver trying to push the car in the rain. Only a few minutes on, there was localised snow that caused a Porsche to flip off the road and crash into the trees in the creek next to the Autostrada. Two more cars had run into each other a little further ahead from the snow as well.


I was in San Gimignano in 1994 with Su and David and in 2001 WWOOFing. Marco Arduini and family, my WWOOF hostsfrom 2001, live about 7km out of town and I remember the way so I decided to get off my ass and walk rather than asking to be picked up. Felt wonderful marching along by my self in the Italian county-side.

About a third of the way there, one of the three wheeled motor bike/ute type things stopped and, to my surprise, out hops Marco's son, Nicolas. So my pack and I ended up in the back of this little motor bike/ute thing watching the country-side fall away behind us. The poor little thing scarcely made it up some of the hills. I suspect it's engine wasn't more than 100cc so I guess it is forgiven :P

The rustic transport with the wind blowing in my hair and the road falling away behind me...ah freedom!


As the visit to Marco and family was a last minute addition to my plans, I only had the chance to stay one day but it was great catching up with them all after 6 years.

Fiesole - Italy

I find my self, once again, at Elisa Grandis' place WWOOFing as I did in 2001.

Ruth has returned to Australia after our 2 months together.

After leaving Switzerland on the 5th of January, we travelled by train(using our Eurail passes) to Naopli in southern Italy. The trip got a bit complicated after our train though the Swiss alps stopped, on the Italian side of the border but before Milano, in some railway siding for 15 minutes, causing us to arrive in Milano at the scheduled departure time of our connecting train. As soon as our feet hit the concrete of Milano Centrale we were running flat out with our big packs. Not one of Ruth's favorite pass times considering she hates both being late and running :)

The Italian rail system is far less organised when compared to the German or Swiss networks. Neither the Internet sites or our ticket had listed the platform on which our connection would be, or in our case should have been. However in Switzerland and Germany, not only are the trains on time every time, the platform information and more is on both the Internet and your ticket.

Despite not knowing the platform number, we found the right platform without stopping running. Didn't even get the reward of seeing the train moving off down the platform. So there we were in Milano with the last connection to Napoli gone. Fun :s

We managed to get a replacement ticket on a slow night train that we had to change from to get to Napoli. We arrived in Napoli at 5am rather than 11pm the night before.

The frustration of all this was ameliorated by us having six reclining seats to lay down on in a cabin on our own for the night trip. I managed 6 or so hours sleep incredibly. Ruth wasn't so lucky.

My sister, Jody, lent us here apartment in Napoli for two days before we left for Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Our time in Napoli was enjoyable and, once again, we were treated to sunshine and blue skies for the better part of a week.

We spent six days in a beautiful holiday/B&B place about 4km out of Positano. Thanks to my brother and sister, this cost us nothing other than food as it is family owned.


Ruth and I enjoyed greatly the wonderful views from our room(below) and everywhere at the villa.


We also took the 4km walk, along the thin and windy Amalfi coast road that is perched on the side of the cliff, into Positano twice. From Positano we climbed many stairs to the little village of Montepertuso and more stairs to the village's name sake, a huge hole in the rock of the Amalfi mountain range.
If one could call it a mountain range as it is really the edge of the Italian peninsula pushing up at the eastern edge and dropping very steeply into the Mediterranean Sea.



We spent the last two days of our time in southern Italy in Napoli again with my sister. We dinner Jody and Kimon's father, Michaele, and his family who live less than 10 minutes walk from Jody's little apartment.

Our trip from Napoli back up Italy was painless and fast as we caught an ESI(EuroStarItalia) train directly to Firenze.

We were hoping to stay with Elisa Grandis but her B&B was full and she did not have room for us to pitch my tent so we ended up in a little B&B, "Le Cannelle", in the ancient pre- Roman town of Fiesole for two nights. Fiesole is perched about 6km or so out of Firenze it self and dates from before the Romans captured it in 60 B.C.

Le Cannelle was nice but at €80 per night it was not an option for long. Ruth had to be at the Firenze airport at about 5am which left us with no options other than a taxi considering the buses to the airport didn't start until after we needed to be there.

Elisa offered me WWOOFing at her place for the 6 days I was going to be in Firenze which worked nicely as Ruth and I were able to stay there for our last evening together before getting up at 4:00am and catching a taxi to the airport.

The last few days have I have felt rather flat. Ruth leaving has weighed heavily on my mood.
Although I am beginning to feel a little better with a few days of work behind me.

I have been really getting stuck into my Spanish lessons, doing twice as much per day(1 hour).

For me, I feel the trip I planned so many months ago has finally begun. Coming to Europe with Ruth was wonderful and I do not regret a bit of it but the trip I planned from long before I finished high school was a solo WWOOFing trip to see more of the world. Just the change to solo, despite still being in Italy, has made a big move in the direction of that dream.

The next time you hear from me I will have achieved both of those aims.

Oberwil- Basel Land - Switzerland

Ruth and I left Belgium on the 6th of December for Hannover in Germany. We travelled overland using our Eurail passes. We took an "ICE"(Inter City Express) from Brussels to Köln. Changed trains to another ICE that took us the rest of the way to Hannover.

In Hannover we stayed with Lisa Seiler, a girl that Ruth and I know from her time in Australia on exchange last year. Despite being in the middle of exams, Lisa arranged time to show us around the city in the evenings. Lisa's mother brought home many special German foods for us to try. We had a good time in Hannover despite having only two full days. Well I guess I should mention that we made good use of the last night! Lisa and a class mate from her school, Anna, took us out on the town. We saw the new town hall(only 100 or so years old) nicely light up and walked to a big lake, the Maschsee, that was built to help the unemployment ratio improve. The wind blew so hard that there were waves over a foot high on the lake and the beer bottle that I was drinking from was making a whistling sound. With many more fun things in the night we got back to Lisa's place at 3 am.

We spent seven days in a small community called Prinzhöfte about an hour from Bremen with a good friend of mine, Alexander Grote. The night we arrived there was a Christmas party on which everyone in the community (about 20 adults and 8 or so children at the moment)
came to. Wonderful food and lots of it, stories, a chemistry/fireworks show and a stack of games. A wonderful evening in all.

Got a close look at six 3Mw Vestas Wind turbines on 80m towers. Very impressive! Quite too. Living at the base of one would be a bit annoying but acceptable. These are BIG turbines! Just the rotors weigh 35 tons. The Generation house on the top of the tower is bigger than a semi-trailer! They are Huge.


Took part in a North American Indian sweat lodge ceremony along with twelve or so other people from the Prinzhöfte community. Tobias, a close friend of Alexander's, was the ceremony master. Having spent eight years with a North American Indian tribe, he was able to share with us many traditional rituals and ceremonies. Between Tobias' chanting, the herbs and plans burnt on the glowing rocks by his wife and the penetrating heat of the steam, one was able to relax wonderfully. Upon completion of the ceremonies and chanting, jumping in the nearly zero degree stream twenty metres away forced reality to return in a rush! Laying in the fallen leaves of the Beech and oaks trees, clothed in naught but my underwear...heart raced...could feel every muscle in my body! Absolutely and totally ALIVE! Memorable to say the least.
The air can't have been more than 2 degrees C. Got to -2 later that night.
We shared a big meal together, drank and talked until the early hours of the morning.
I took advantage of my down sleeping bag and slept outside.
Body felt wonderful for days after.


Switzerland was 6 hours away by high speed train. The "ICE" trains are great. Really quiet, fast and smooth. Our Eurail passes have already paid for themselves nearly twice over.

We have been staying with Gisiger/Bailey family since the 16th of December. We have been slitting our time between site seeing and Christmas celebrations with the family.

The Pilatus mountain just out of Luzern was incredible. Despite a clear day in Basel, Luzern was cloud covered. Caught the cable gondola to the top. The Pilatus, at 2132m, had it's head well and truly out of the cloud. We could see some of Switzerland's highest alps(3000-4600m+) poking up out of the cloud. Some as close as 40km, others as far as 100km on the Italian border.
Ruth and I hiked part way back down the mountain though the snow and the forest to the little village of Kriens just out of Luzern.

We have spent a little time in Basel itself. Some of the architecture here is quite nice although I am a little tired of looking at Churches and other common buildings in every city we visit. So, for me at least, the trip to the Pilatus and later to the alps was more than welcome. We spent 3 days in the alps at a little place called Realp near Andermatt. The train trip to get there was spectacular to say the least. I think it is best described by a few of the many pictures I took on the trip.

The snow in the alps was terrible. They have not had less in 30 years. Never-the-less we decided to make use of what little snow there was and hired snowboards for 3 days. Had a good time despite rain coming in on the third day and making what was left of the snow unusable.
Within 12 hours of us leaving, half a metre of snow had fallen. Bad timing on our part I guess.

Everywhere I go people are muttering, "hasn't been this dry for years" or "can't remember it being so warm" and so on! Seriously everywere! In Germany I was looking at post cards in a few little towns and most of the cards show the village white at this time of year and yet the first snow we saw was in the swiss alps! Even there in the alps the temperatures were very warm. About 5°C on New Year's Eve. At the same time last year it was -28°C.

We leave for Italy in two days. We plan to spend a few days in Naples with my sister, Jody, after which a week in Positano on the Amalfi coast.

Hope everyone's year is off to a good start and the silly season is starting to calm down. Good luck for 07.

Until next time...
Oli Holmgren