We are Alistair and Suzanne. We moved to Anatoli near Ierapetra from the U.K. in 2004. Leaving behind a life of sitting in queues on the motorways of England Scotland and Wales we decided to take up olive farming on a Cretan Hillside.
Packing our worldly possessions, and two birman cats, into a car and small trailer we set off for our new life.
Unbeknown to Alistair, Suzanne had packed a book called 'looking after a donkey' by Dorothy Morris. He should have known that shortly after arriving we would take on our first long eared chap - George.
Whilst Alistair is proud to announce that before meeting Suzanne he had only ever had a goldfish, Suzanne was brought up surrounded by horses and ponies and was taught from a very early age how to look after them. This experience has proved very useful as although donkeys are different they are still members of the equine family.
We both attended a seminar hosted by the Greek Animal Welfare Fund in the special care of donkeys. Amongst other issues, this dealt with health care and foot care of donkeys. This was extremely useful and meant that we are able to help donkey owners in the villages by giving their donkeys follow up tetanus injections and helping with footcare.
The rest, as they say, is history. The locals think, quite rightly, that we are crazy but they are also willing to spread the word that these crazy people will take in unwanted donkeys and before long we had seven donkeys eating us out of house and home.
We are not in the fortunate position of having a pension so in order to feed ourselves and the donkeys we have done a variety of jobs here. Holiday repping, playing keyboard and singing in various bars and hotels, collecting olives, and cleaning houses to mention just a few.
We have a great love of walking, and a passion for the nature of this area of South East Crete. We want to introduce the holiday maker to the beauty of the flowers, birds, and mountains near Ierapetra.
We would like to encourage ecotourism in Crete and get away from the mass tourism of the coastal areas.
