Fernando's Logbook
I fly a plane called Saoirse to places most people drive past, and I bring back the thing the view was hiding. Not the postcard. The story underneath it, the one most people walk straight past. Some of it will make you want to go. Some of it will stay with you for reasons you won't expect. You don't need a plane. You just need to wonder what you've been driving past.
Fernando's Logbook
Devon, the Jurassic Coast and a Donkey Called Zena
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In this episode, we fly to Exeter, Devon, to visit Zena, a donkey Fernando adopted a year ago and has never once visited.
This episode is part travel guide, part quiet question on the things we care about from a distance.
We explore the Regency seaside town of Sidmouth, walk the Jurassic Coast, and visit the Donkey Sanctuary, one of the largest equine welfare charities in the world and one of the best free family days out in the south of England.
For photos and the full article, visit here
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We believe the best adventures are shared from one human to another. That’s why everything in Fernando’s Logbook is created entirely by talented people and artists. We do not use Generative AI at any stage.
Welcome
SPEAKER_07I have a confession to make. I have a daughter I've never met. She's 17 years old and she lives in Devon. She has hundreds of adopting fathers and mothers. And she doesn't know any of us exist. She is a donkey.
SPEAKER_08Welcome back to Fernando's Love Book, a travel podcast from a pilot's perspective with stories from each destination, practical ideas for once you're there, and questions worth thinking about on the way home. Today, we're flying to Exeter in Devon to visit a small region's East Seaside town called Sidma on the edge of the Jurassic Coast. And to meet a donkey Fernando adopted a year ago. He's never seen her before now. I'm Joy, your co-pilot for the Love Book. Fernando, over to you.
SPEAKER_07Thank you, Joey. About a year ago, my wife got me an unusual gift. She had noticed me on social media watching videos of donkeys. I think it's a completely reasonable thing to do. I mean adorable, right? So she don't need that and adopted a donkey in my name.
SPEAKER_05She doesn't know what it exists. She doesn't know what month it is.
SPEAKER_07To me, it feels a bit strange.
SPEAKER_05So today we are fighting to put that right. We are having to fitness earth all Victorian 5 in the edge of the Jurassic coast.
SPEAKER_07185 million years of geological history is exposed in a single stretch of coastline.
SPEAKER_05It's one of the most extraordinary places in England, and most people drive straight past it.
Take Off
SPEAKER_05Let's go.
In-flight entertainment
SPEAKER_05And now let me share the captivating story of the place we are heading to. Peter's Nathan with your in-flight entertainment.
SPEAKER_03Stretching along the southern coast of England, from Eczmouth in Devon to Student Bay in Dorset, lies one of the most remarkable strips of coastline in the world. 185 million years of Earth's history, exposed in a single 95-mile walk. The glimpse here tell a story no human was alive to witness. The red sandstone of Devon dates to the classic period when this land was a vast desert. Move eastward, and the rocks become Jurassic. Ancient seabeds, full of creatures that no longer exist. Further still, the white jaw lives of Dorset mark the age of the dinosaurs. Three geological eras laid out in sequence like pages of a book you can walk along. In 2001, this coastline became England's first national UNESCO World Heritage Site. But long before any recognition, one woman already understood what these things contained. Mary Abbott was born in Lyme Regis in 1799. The daughter of a carpenter who sold curiosities from the beast. When her father died, Mary continued. At 12, she and her brother uncovered the first Icle. The first of what scientists would later call an Igliosaur. A sea creature dead for 200 million years. Marvelous animal terrible name. Over the following decades, he uncovered the first Isiosaurus and the first British pterosaur. Scientists came from across Europe above her fossils, and loveless papers based on her world. Mary Allen died in 1847. In 2010, the Royal Society named her among the ten most influential women in the history of British science. The fossils are still falling out of those cliffs with every winter storm. Anyone can walk where Mary Annick walked. And anyone on the right day might find a fossil of their own. And now, back to your pilot, Fernando.
SPEAKER_07Thank you, Nathan. Now, the plan was to record this next section in the air, but the flight was quite busy, and to be completely honest, I forgot to click record. So I'm back in the studio, and please bear with me and try to imagine the flight and the descent into Exeter. We'll be back in the ground in a couple of minutes. The Donkey Sanctuary sits just above Sidmas, about 30 minutes south of Exeter. It's funded in part by people like me and you, ordinary people who pay a small amount each month to adopt one of their residents, a donkey. In return, you get a certificate, a framed photo, and regular updates. Now, what you might not know is that your donkey has other adopters. Not just you, but in reality, thousands of them. So one donkey, many parents. And I've been helping Pay towards Xina's care for a year. But here's the strange part. I think about her. I have a photo of her in my office, I know her name without having to look it up, and somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, I've started to care for her. And I don't know how to call it. What does it mean to care, to love for something that doesn't know you exist? An animal you adopted, a place you keep returning to, a cause you quietly support. Someone. We build these connections all the time, and they feel completely real, but they are entirely one-sided.
Landing at Exeter
SPEAKER_04Here we are at Exeter Airport.
SPEAKER_07I forgot to turn on the recording of the landing, so apologies for that, but This is just what I told you earlier, and as you can see, I felt quite self-conscious.
SPEAKER_04It's good.
SPEAKER_07I landed just after 11 in the morning. Air traffic controls sent me to park on the grass apron, and this is the option used by pilots who choose not to pay for the handling service. And if you are curious, the handling service is basically a free diet coke and a 30-second minibus transfer to the terminal. What I had not expected was to step out of the plane to the sound of dozens of birds who had also chosen to park on the grass. That was the most rewarding welcome I've ever had, even after having declined the minibus. Exeter Airport is a small international airport, the kind of place where you are through arrivals and in a rental car in 10 minutes. I had thought about spending the morning in Exeter itself. The cathedral has the longest uninterrupted gothic vaulted ceiling in the world, and the Roman walls built in 55 AD are still there, still standing.
Sidmouth
SPEAKER_07But I wanted to get to Sidmas in good time, so I picked up the car and headed southeast. About two minutes out of the airport, and you are properly in Devon. Narrow lanes and edge roads pressing in on both sides. And the road itself was a small revelation. No potholes. True, I'm not used to that anymore. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like. Twenty minutes in, between hills covered in old trees, I turned right at a sign bigger than I've ever seen saying Sidmas. And a few minutes later, there it was, the sea. I grew up by the sea in Portugal, and I saw it almost every day for 30 years. And it still gets me every time. The English Channel was glittering. The sun was shining right onto it, that shimmering effect when the light hits the water just right. And to the east those red sandstone cliffs, deep rusty red against the blue of the water. Triassic sandstone, 250 million years old. Sigma stuck between the cliffs and the water, as if some Georgian architect had placed it there as part of his master plan. I parked the car and walked along the Esplanade. Mostly elderly people and dogs. People sitting with the coffee and a slice of cake, looking at the horizon content. Sidmus has been called God's waiting room over the years on account of his older population. I disagree. In this town you feel quite alive, and you have to, if you intend to walk those red cliffs and the coast pass that runs along the top of them. Back at the Esplanade, most of the frontline buildings are still original. Georgian and Regency mostly. White and grand and looking out over the sea as they have for 200 years. It was all so quiet despite the number of people about. Sidmas is the kind of town that has somehow resisted the urge of becoming anything other than itself and is much better for it. I looked east again at the Red Cliffs. The Southwest Coast Pass runs right up there. I didn't get a chance to walk it this time.
Arriving at the Donkey Sanctuary
SPEAKER_07The sanctuary is in that direction, and I had a donkey to find. I had pre-arranged a chat with someone on the visitor services team. Donna has been there for eight years. Eight years? Yes. How did you come across the sanctuary?
SPEAKER_09Well, I used to work in cosmetics.
SPEAKER_07Wow.
SPEAKER_09And when it was my day off, I worked as a volunteer groom, which is over the road. So we're at Sladehouse Farm, which is the main visitor attraction. Literally on the other side of the road is a much bigger farm called Trown Hereford. So I worked there as a volunteer groom. So and then when this job came up, I was able to apply for I'd had some equine experience, and also it had to be if you worked in a visitor attraction.
SPEAKER_07We walked slowly up through the fields towards the area where Zina lives. And I asked Donna things I thought I already knew the answers to. I had read that donkeys were intelligent, that they had long memories, that they bonded for life. I had read that they grieve. I knew that about elephants, but not about donkeys. Donna confirmed all of it. And then she told me something I had not quite expected.
SPEAKER_09They yeah, they're bonded companions and things like that. We've had over the years of them coming in, they did have to bring a donkey in one time with a cow because that's who it was bonded with. And they, if you separate a donkey from its bonded companion, there is a condition they can get that is called hyperlipemia, and it's when the fat in the organ starts going around the body, and that can be fatal for donkeys. So it's caused by a high level of stress. So donkeys are sentient, you know, they do have feelings, so when anything happens like that, um donkeys can become very, very unwell.
SPEAKER_07If you think it's fascinating, listen to this.
SPEAKER_09The thing that you think might be kinder is to, if a donkey is really sick and has to be put to sleep, that it would be much better, let's take it away to the hospital, you know, put it to sleep. However, the donkey that's been left behind, you've just taken its bonded companion, and quite often they will literally be walking around eating with them all the, you know, they're with them all the time. So if you took it away, it wouldn't understand why the donkey's no longer there and it would pine and become really unwell. Whereas if we have to come in and put the donkey to sleep with its companion, and with the other herd of donkeys sometimes, it might have had a bonded companion, but within a group, so all of those donkeys are allowed to see the donkey. It's very it's a beautifully done, you know, with always um they don't drop to the ground, people, the grooms are there to hold the donkey, get sedated, put to sleep, gently laid down, and then the donkeys, then you leave the donkeys to process that. So a donkey will come up. Quite often, when I've seen it happen, they'll uh tap them with their hooves and as if to, you know, come on, get up, get up, trying to get them up. And they said they will allow the donkey however long it needs. So within five minutes, they might have walked to and fro and then offer them some food. If they walk around away from the donkey and then they start eating, they've pro they kind of processed and they've seen what it is that's happened. Um, it could be three, four, five hours though. And they won't they won't just say, Oh, we've got to get the body, we've got to go. You won't do that. You wait. You wait. The donkey decides when when it is processed, really, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Donkeys grieve. They need time to process the loss, and if they don't get it, they can become seriously ill. We talked about the adoption scheme, about what the 48 pounds a year actually pays for, and about how many people adopt each donkey. Thousands.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_07So I'm not Zena's only adopting parent. There are thousands of us. Part of every 48 pounds goes back into producing the certificate, the photo pack, and the newsletters. The rest joins the constant trickle of income that keeps the whole sanctuary going. And the charity does a lot more than Devon. They run programs in countries all over the world Ethiopia, Kenya, India, helping the working donkeys that carry water and crops in some of the poorest communities on earth. And then Donna said something that has stayed with me.
SPEAKER_09Abroad, we we say we reach out to about 500 million people, because in Ethiopia and Kenya they rely on donkeys to do everything for them. And so by helping educate them and look after their donkeys well, it has a knock-on effect that you're helping millions of people around the world who have donkeys.
SPEAKER_07There's the old saying in Ethiopia that goes like this if you don't have a donkey, you are a donkey.
SPEAKER_09It is nearly always women and children that have to carry water, carry the crops and things. So if their donkey is stolen and they don't have a donkey, they are left with not being able to go to school, their children suffering and things. So the work we do is really important, and that's getting a few.
SPEAKER_07The four pounds leaving my account in Cambridge isn't just feeding Zina. It joins a wider stream of money that keeps the whole charity going. Some of it stays in Devon, some of it reaches further. I don't think I had understood any of that until Donna said it out loud. I'm glad something I do quietly each month is helping families I'll never
Finding Zena
SPEAKER_07meet. We kept walking up to the field where Xina lives.
SPEAKER_09Oh, I can see Xina. She's over there. See in the corner there's some grey donkeys over to the left the little brown one with the blue collar on. That is actual Xina. Yes. Zina! Fernando's here! Xina? Ashley? Mr. Khan! She is looking, she, you know who is? It might be not necessarily because I called her name, but because there's someone in I've been in with them, they are not a stranger, but I'm not their grooms that they're really, really familiar with. Yes. I can walk down, have a little scratch, then walk back, and then sometimes they will I won't make her do anything, but if I go down, give her a little scratch, she might she might follow back up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I stayed by the fence and on her walk slowly towards the donkeys.
SPEAKER_10Hello. Hello, Ashley. Hello, gorgeous. Oh you haven't got your blue collar on. Hello, gorgeous Lina. Hello, sweetheart.
unknownHello.
SPEAKER_10Hello. Hi, Mr. Khan. Hello. Lovely oh, lovely to see you. Shall we just walk back up now?
SPEAKER_07I'd been at the fence for twenty minutes, and I called her name quietly a few times, and she didn't move. She was about 30 meters away with Ashley, her old friend, with Mr. Khan, another friend, and with the others. Grazing and busy being a donkey. I wasn't surprised to be honest. I knew these might happen. Donna had warned me. The more you try to get a donkey to come over, the less likely they are to do it. What really surprised me is that I felt a bit silly. I had flown there for that moment, and at the end, that was the closest I could get to her. We moved around to the other side of the field, and from there you could see her even better. But yet she still didn't come. Ashley came over instead.
SPEAKER_10Bless him.
SPEAKER_09That's Ashley. Ashley, yeah, he's he's actually got an eye missing, Ashley. But he's the same age as um Zina. And Mr. Khan, who stood there, he hasn't got his collar on, but him and Ashley look very, very alike. Yeah, really, really.
SPEAKER_07He let me scratch him for a while and he had only one eye. The other lost last year to a corneal ulcer that wouldn't heal. He didn't know me either, but he was there. And after a while I thought, okay, this is the story, he's not coming, and that's fine. So I started to walk away. Okay, I'll be doing that, thank you.
SPEAKER_09Hey. Fernando Fernando? Yeah, there's someone here to see you. Oh she came.
SPEAKER_07Hello Zina. And there she was. Zina at the fence looking at me. I know she didn't come for me, and I knew that before I came to Devon. And I know it now. She came over because she's a donkey, and donkeys sometimes come over. But she did come over. I stay with her a while longer anyway.
SPEAKER_09You're a gorgeous girl, aren't you? Look at those eyes. They're so beautiful. She did come over. She's the only one as well. I know. Right. I think she said she's never been in a plane before. She'll come. She'll come with you.
SPEAKER_07Not big enough for her.
Two Donkeys
SPEAKER_07For a year I have carried a small version of her with me. A photo on my office wall and a monthly direct of it. A donkey called Zina. She lives in a field in Devon. I have never met her, and somehow along the way, I build a version of her in my head. And today I met the real one. The real Zina is in a field above six months. She has a blue collar. She's a bit smaller than I imagined. She's busy being a donkey. And she doesn't know me. The Zina in my office didn't disappear when I met the real one. She's still there. The photo, the version of her I've been carrying around. I thought meeting Zina would somehow merge the two, but it didn't. I came home with two donkeys. The one in Devon, who doesn't know me, and the one in my office, who I keep paying for. And I think both of them are real. The one in the field is obviously real. She has hopes and a coat that's coming out in the spring. She has friends, she's known since birth. She has her own life, which has almost nothing to do with mine. But the one in my office, she's real too. She's the one I think about. She's the reason I flew to Devon. The small version isn't a substitute for the real one. It's something different. Something that lives in me. And I don't think I'm alone in this. We all carry small versions of all sorts of things. The place we visit once and still think about, the cause we quietly support, the person we admire from a distance, the home we grew up and it doesn't exist anymore. We carry these small versions with us and we show up for them and we keep them alive somehow. The Donkey Sentry understood this before I did. They give you a name, a photo, a few updates a year. They give you exactly enough to build something. And the something you build is what they are really funding. Not Zina specifically, but the version of Zina that lives in your head, wherever you are in the country. Do you remember that proverb that Donut shares with us? She says it's Ethiopian. If you don't have a donkey, you are a donkey. Meaning, in the poorest parts of the world, if a family doesn't have a donkey, the woman becomes the donkey. She carries the water, she carries the crops, she walks the miles. The small Zina on my office wall isn't really feeding Zina. Zina would be fed regardless. The small zina on my office wall, she's helping fund the donkeys that aren't there. The ones in Ethiopia and Kenya. The ones whose lives are the difference between a child going to school and a child carrying water. I started to walk away from the fence today. I'd call her name and she hadn't come. Ashley came over instead. Who has been her companion since she was born. So I accepted it and I left. And then Donna shouted my name. Zina had come over. Not when I was calling her, when I'd given up. I am going to carry that moment with me. Added to the small version in my office. The one in Devon will never know I'm doing it. And I think
If you go
SPEAKER_07that's fine. I was back at Exeter Airport later that afternoon. Sitting in a plane, going through the pre-flight checks, watching the light change over Devon. It had been a strange day, but the good kind of strange? The kind where you arrive thinking you know what it's going to be about, then you leave thinking about something else entirely. If you want to district yourself, and I really think you should, here's what I suggest. Fly or take the train into Exeter. Spend the morning in a city, the cathedral, the Roman walls, and have lunch by the river. Drive or taxi down to Sidmas in the afternoon. Walk a stretch of the coast pass, head east from the Esplanade, and up onto the clifftop. The views are amazing. Then visit the donkey sanctuary. Give it two hours at least. And if you can, stay the night in Sidmas. I didn't manage all of it. I flew in for the day, drove to Sidmouth, walked the Esplanade, met Zina. Then back to Exeter, back in the plane. But I left wanting to come back with my wife and our children.
Take off
SPEAKER_07Who walked me through the fields and told me things about donkeys I haven't stopped thinking about. And Simon Horn, who made the whole visit possible. My thanks to them both and to everyone at the Donkey Sanctuary. I'll be back next month to take you somewhere new. Until then, blue skies.
SPEAKER_08And that's where we land on Fernando's logbook. Fernando is back home. The direct debit is still running. Xina is, by all accounts, absolutely fine. If you'd like to see photos of Zina and the trip, and some suggestions for visiting yourself, the links are in the episode notes. There's also a way to adopt your own donkey from the sanctuary. We'd love it if you did. See you next time. Peter, I'm going to adopt a donkey.
