Cooking? Gardening? Your choice - whatever suits you best while helping me with my Farmstead in Tinalhas, Central Portugal :)

Infos

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  Description

  Hey, I'm Dan.
  
  This is a small off-grid camp in the hills of Castelo Branco, central Portugal. Three and a half thousand square metres of olive trees, dry grass and pine, the Serra da Estrela on the horizon, and a silence at night that takes most people a couple of days to get used to.
  
  Everything here runs on its own. Power comes from the sun, water from our own borehole, internet from Starlink and 4G. Off-grid, but not rough — hot showers, flush toilets, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, electricity across the camp. The comfort is here, it just doesn't come from a grid.
  
  Two things keep this place alive, and they are exactly where I need hands: the garden and the kitchen. Someone to water, plant, weed and harvest. Someone who likes to cook and will put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table for the camp. Everything else — the building, the systems, the machines — is my side of the work.
  
  I speak German and English, and I'm learning Portuguese slowly. I get on best with people who can be independent: do their four hours properly, then take the rest of the day for themselves. The camp is quiet on purpose. It isn't a hostel and it isn't a party — it's a working place with good food and a lot of sky.
  
  If that sounds like your kind of month, write me.
  
  Dan

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Aide avec des éco-projets

  Jardinage d'entretien

  Aide dans une ferme

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison

  Petits travaux d'entretien

  Garde de maison et d'animaux
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  Centres d’intérêt

  

  Soin des plantes

  

  Camping

  

  Danse

  

  Montagne

  

  Vidéographie

  

  Technologie

  

  Dev. durable

  

  Vie en van

  

  Dev. personnel

  

  Bénévolat

  

  Bricolage / artisanat

  

  Musique
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  Objectifs de développement durable de l’ONU que cet hôte essaie d'atteindre

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  Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  This is a working off-grid system, not a demonstration of one, and you're welcome to look inside all of it.
  
  The power. Panels, battery bank, inverter, and live monitoring of what the camp is actually drawing. You can watch consumption in real time and see for yourself why the kettle is a bigger decision here than the lights.
  
  The water. Our own borehole — pump, storage, filtering — from the ground to the tap.
  
  The garden. Growing food in thin soil, hard sun and very little rain: watering strategy, shade, mulch, what survives a Beira Baixa August and what quietly gives up.
  
  The kitchen. Cooking for a changing group out of what's in the store and what's ripe, with Portuguese ingredients and their Portuguese names.
  
  The language. I'm fluent in German and English and I'm learning Portuguese. If you speak Portuguese I'd love to trade — my German or English for your Portuguese, half an hour at a time over coffee.

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  Aide

  I need help in two places: the garden and the kitchen. Four hours a day, five days a week, two days off. Pick the role that suits you, or split your week between both.
  
  The garden
  
  The garden here is beds, a lot of pots, and drip line running between them — tomatoes, courgettes, sunflowers, herbs, young trees, all of it under a sun that does not negotiate. Watering and keeping the drip system honest, sowing and potting on, planting out, weeding, mulching, composting, harvesting, and looking after the olive and fruit trees. Keeping green things alive through a dry Portuguese summer is the whole job. You don't need to arrive an expert — you need to notice what a plant is telling you and come back the next day.
  
  The kitchen
  
  Breakfast, lunch and dinner for the camp. Breakfast is simple and unhurried — bread, eggs, fruit, coffee, whenever people surface. Lunch and dinner are the real cooking: mostly Mediterranean, Portuguese and West African, plenty of fish and vegetables, very little pork. I do the shopping and keep the store filled; you decide what we eat and cook it. If you have dishes from home you want to feed people, even better — that's my favourite part of having volunteers here.
  
  And the ordinary care that comes with both
  
  Keeping your own workspace in order, washing up behind yourself, and telling me when something is running low or has broken. That's it.
  
  What I'm not looking for this season: a building crew. The construction projects are mine.

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  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Allemand: Courant
  Anglais: Courant
  Portugais: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  🇵🇹I am interested in learning portuguese
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  Hébergement

  You get your own tent — small, medium or large, or a bell tent, depending on what's free when you arrive. They're furnished: a proper bed with a real mattress, mosquito netting, a rug on the floor, somewhere to put your things. Not a mat on the ground. If you travel in a campervan there are three good spots for it with power.
  
  Shared by everyone: hot showers, flush toilets, electricity, Starlink and 4G internet, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, and the camp kitchen.
  
  All meals are included. Whoever is on kitchen duty cooks; when nobody is, I do. Nobody shops or cooks for themselves alone here — we eat together.

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  Autres infos...

  Your time off is properly yours. Four hours in the morning, and the rest of the day is for reading, sleeping, your own projects, or disappearing into the hills.
  
  There's a pool — four metres by two, up and full through the summer, looking out over the valley. In August that pool is the centre of the afternoon and nobody pretends otherwise.
  
  Around you: pine forest and olive groves you can walk into straight from the gate, hammocks in the shade, and views across to the Serra da Estrela. There's a village bar a short walk away — good for a beer, and for hearing Portuguese spoken at full speed.
  
  Shopping. A mini-market is a ten-minute walk or five minutes by bike. The big Intermarché is ten minutes by car, thirty by bike. Castelo Branco — old town, castle gardens, cafés, a proper city evening — is twenty minutes by car.
  
  Transport. This is the honest catch. Public transport out here is thin. With your own car or van you'll have a completely different stay, and I'd genuinely recommend it. Without one you depend on lifts and your own legs, which some people love and some find long.
  
  Also here. There are animals at the camp and the area is fenced, so a well-behaved pet can usually come along — ask me first. I smoke, outdoors.
  
  Come for a week and stay as long as it works for both of us. The people who got the most out of this place arrived for two weeks and left three months later.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

  🛜 Yes - we have 4G Internet and Starling

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  🚐We have around three nice camping spots for your campervan with electricity

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  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  🐶Pet friendly environment area is fenced but ask first

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Plus de 2

Sécurité du site

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