Our fourth Workaway began with a 9hr bus ride from Dubrovnik to Zagreb, still not 100% recovered from Sail Croatia and coming down with a cold, this was a long day... We were to meet our new host in Zagreb around 6pm at the bus terminal. After a few minutes of miscommunications between each party we finally found each other. Jakeo was our new host.
We did a quick lap of the city centre of Zagreb before heading 110km south east to a little village called Plesmo on the edge of the Lonjsko Polje National Park to Jakeo's retreat/village project Ekoetno Selo Strug where we'd spend the next four weeks.
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| View looking back from the yard, the right white house is to be a day spa type house, behind that is two old buildings yet to be renovated. In the centre is a couple of the villas which are used for accommodation. |
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| Restaurant overlooking some carp filled ponds. |
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| Views from the restaurant. |
Our daily routine was:
- Get up before 8am to feed/water 5 horses and feed/let out the chickens, ducks and rabbits.
- Fix ourselves breakfast at the restaurant. Typically porridge, sometimes we'd make poached eggs with bacon. Drink coffee and discuss the plans for the day.
- Work - this included cleaning the stables, maintaining electric fences for the horses, cleaning the villas, mowing and whipper snipping, painting the villas, refurbishing the chicken pens, helping in the restaurant or kitchen.
- Lunch was around 12.30 and was fixed by ourselves or Maja one of the employees, she was the manager of the retreat and jack of many trades.
- Work would continue until 3ish depending on the weather or whether we'd achieved our goal before hand.
- Free time before dark (around 6.30pm) then we'd fetch the horses from the field to lock them in the stables, lock up the chickens etc. and head to the restaurant for a cold beer and dinner.
Overall our main responsibility was to look after the horses, ensure they were let out of the stable area each morning, fed and put back in the stable area each night. Over the 4 weeks there were numerous occasions where the horses escaped from their paddocks or stables so we had to do a bit of maintenance around the place to keep the hooers in... By the end we'd overhauled the paddock fences and managed to keep them locked in behind the electric fences.
Horses were: Ringo (ex trotter - a troubled horse who loved human company, easily spooked and was an outcast among the other horses), Grome (the boss of the group, really nice to ride plenty of go), Had (solid cold blood horse who was slow and lazy, very safe), Lisa (stubborn cold blood mare, very strong) & Spot (still a foal).
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| Ringo (trouble maker) |
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| Spot |
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| Grome and Lisa |
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| Horse stables/yard. |
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| Old electric fence would short out with significant overgrowth. chop chop and some new wire and we fixed her up. |
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| Our humble dwelling for the 4 weeks, a couple of hundred year old Croatian house built for a servant back in the day. |
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| Our little wood stove - had to load wood from the top. Door below gave access to coal bed and lighting the stove. |
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| Retrieving the horses one night from the paddock. |
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| Amy on Had - we rode the horses a few times but not as much as we'd expected. We were too busy working on other tasks and then too tired after the days work to get out and about on them unfortunately. |
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| Amy's first ride in/on a Porsche |
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| A communist statue in Plesmo. |
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| A refurbished 'lookout' used by soldiers a couple of hundred years ago to keep an eye on the Ottoman across in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the border just behind me. |
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| Amy in one of the may fields of corn, most defiantly the most popular crop among the local farmers. |
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| Couple of pigs for visitors to look at in the National Park. They were very hairy. |
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| Jasenovac memorial for a concentration camp during WW2. Unfortunately when we visited we didn't have our camera so this was the only photo we managed to get - it also sucked because the sunset on this night was amazing and one of the most stunning we've ever seen! |
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| Cutting up bulk potatoes in the restaurant kitchen. |
Things we learnt:
- Make friends with the chef.
- Complement people whom speak English as a second language on how well they speak English.
- Gamish - It was popular to drink half wine/half water (either mineral water or tap water)...
- Rakjia - local traditional sprit, like a Russian vodka/schnapps/gasoline in some cases.
- The Croatian language we picked up along the way: Molim = Please, Hvala = Thanks, Bok = hi/bye, dobro = good, jutro (utro) = morning, vecer (vetchi) = evening, kaku si = how are you, dobar tek = bonapetit, Zivjeli (jevile) = cheers.
- Croatian women work extremely hard, some of the hardest working women we have ever seen.
- Meat, bread, potatoes are certainly staples.
Our spare time we grabbed a couple of bikes and explored the local heritage listed village Krapje. Everyone in the village still lived very traditional lives, growing their own produce and owning a handful of chickens, sheep, pigs. According to Jakeo, not many had employment and relied on minimal welfare to get by, a very basic way of life.
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| Small village with a small grocery shop about 3km away form our stay. Beers were 8kn or $1.60AUD. |
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| Local rooster running the show. |
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| Traditional houses in Krapje, some in better condition than others.. |
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| Local waterhole - a popular spot for fishing. |
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| The River Strung - massive!! Biggest river in Croatia. |
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| Krapje church |
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| Amy found a feral cat - tried to mother it but unfortunately we had to let it go. |
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| Enjoying a wine at the local backyard winery. Freshly pressed grapes in the press. |
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| Jakeo & I enjoying a Gamish & some tucker at a local traditional restaurant 30km away from Eko Selo Strung. |
Our fourth workaway was over 4 weeks. It was our longest stay and we agree it was too long to spend in one place. One of the goals for taking up this workaway was to cut back on the spending since we'd had a couple of expensive months and for the 4 weeks we successfully spent a total of $100AUD (mainly feeding our chocolate addiction at the Krapje convenience store!). We got itchy feet by the end of it and was really looking forward to getting to the next place. We learnt so much about Croatian culture, food and customs. Working at the Restaurant we met many other Croatian's whom visited and were able to learn a bit about their way of life and history of the area. We also met a lady whom grew up in Croatia and then spent 40 or so years in Australia before returning to Croatia around 3 years ago. It was very interesting listening to her views on Croatia as she saw the country from an insider and outsider perspective. Our conversation with her answered many questions we had about life in Croatia. "Croatia looks beautiful and appealing at first glance but it's all bullshit".
Overall this workaway was a very rewarding experience. We had some challenging moments, especially in regards to communication but Maja (a legend) set us on the right track from day one, she did a great job looking after us, making sure we were comfortable and happy. We certainly grew as people and both have a new appreciation for our homeland Australia.
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| Enjoying many drinks with Jakeo on our last night - Thanks mate! |
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