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Feature
Helen Markou Raising alpacas on Dartmoor
It must take an extraordinary amount of courage to give up a high-powered and well-paid job to pursue a dream - even more so, when you have no real experience of the realities of that dream and are going it alone.
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But that’s what Helen Markou has done. She moved to Lydford in April 2019, leaving behind the home counties to take on a six-acre smallholding where she is now raising alpacas, with the idea of organising special walking trails on Dartmoor with these charming animals.
Helen, an out-and-out animal lover, said: ‘I fell in love with alpacas in 2008 when I was in Tasmania with my mum. We were told we could feed them and these two gangly creatures came careering down this steep hill towards us - they were so beautiful, they had such different personalities and characters - I got hooked!’
The small seed of creating a business running alpaca walks was planted and somehow, while working up to 100 hours a week for a software company and flying here, there and everywhere, Helen learned all she could about this South American species and did several courses in animal husbandry.
‘I’d finally got to the point where I was fairly senior in my career - but all I did was work, I really needed some kind of life. I found this place and it seemed perfect for what I wanted to do,’ said Helen, who first dipped her toe into the world of farming when she agreed to look after 18 Jacob sheep for a few months, not long after arriving in Lydford. The experience proved useful in advance of getting her alpacas - although she ended up so fond of her woolly charges, she kept five of them as pets!
‘I never thought sheep could be so clever,’ said Helen. ‘They have quite distinctive personalities - apparently they can remember a human face for up to two years!’
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Helen’s first seven alpacas arrived in Lydford in December - within three months she had nine. Looking after such an unusual, non-native breed in the wettest of Dartmoor winters must surely have been a baptism of fire? ‘It’s been a massive learning curve,’ Helen admitted. ‘I’d cut alpacas’ toenails before but they were very well behaved; they need vitamin shots every other month throughout the winter - when you are looking at £200 a visit by a vet, you have to learn to do it yourself. And they poo much more than I thought - my God, do they poo! But poo-picking has to be done, and the animals aren’t getting parasites, so it’s got to be working.’
Training the alpacas to walk on a halter out onto the moor was going well and Helen was looking forward to launching her trekking business in March - then coronavirus hit. She was forced to take on a temporary job to pay the bills while also fitting in the farmwork. Completing the renovation of the farmhouse also had to go on the back burner as she worked. ‘There’s constantly something to do, but even if I just tick one job off a day, it’s something,’ said Helen cheerfully.
As social restrictions eased during the summer, she was able to take up the training again with the help of some willing volunteers and when we met, was looking forward to beginning her first, official alpaca walks from the beginning of August.
And it seems as though the boys, as she calls Batman, Penfold, Macca, Bubbles, Barney, Mr T and Mr Sharps, are already becoming locally famous, as they race to the fence of their field right opposite the entrance to Lydford Gorge, eager to say hello to passers by and dog walkers. Two of her foster charges have gone back to the breeder to spend the summer on stud duties, though she hopes Bubbles’ much loved brother will return in the autumn.
They are charmingly inquisitive animals and Helen said they love walking out on the moor, being able to see the views - as mountain animals, they love the lofty heights, even if the Dartmoor tors aren’t quite as majestic as the Andes!
Despite the enormity of the task Helen has set herself, and an unexpected world pandemic to contend with, she remains optimistic for the future, with plans for chickens and a dog to add to the menagerie by Christmas.
‘I love it here - I can’t imagine anything else now,’ she said.
Jane Honey
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