Witaj from sub zero Poland!

With a goal of learning to snowboard, I (Dan) looked further abroad than the typical ski resorts in Austria, Switzerland and France and decided to spend a week in Poland. With friend Matt we set off for Krakow and the mountain town of Zakapone, which borders Slovakia in the Tatra mountain range. After many falls and some lessons we soon got the hang of it and thoroughly enjoyed the amazing scenery, friendly people and very quiet slopes. Poland had so much to offer, with the mountain range being absolutely amazing, and the history and architecture so interesting. While snowboarding was the highlight, the funicular train rides, walks, seeing the many old wooden building and finding out about the history surrounding Jews’ plight during the war all made the trip a really worthwhile journey.

Working down on the farm

This was a solo trip to the Algarve, Portugal as I (Dan) had too use up my leave. It was a holiday with a difference, WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) on an 8 hectare farm in Aljezur. The break was great – leaving the daily inside activities of working in the office, phones and emails and getting outside to plant trees, a potato patch, collecting wood and clear brambles. It’s wasn’t all hard work, I managed to get to the beach and local market plus a few hours of spare time in Lagos and Faro. My hosts were a lovely Welsh couple and we hand many happy nights with other WWOOFers. To top it off I got to re-experience what it was like living in a vehicle again (on our car rally in 07/08 we lived for 3 weeks out of a car) by living in an old converted van!