We continued our trip into deepest Galicia by visiting an attractive gorge, reminiscent of the rock-hopping I reported seeing in Australia's Kimberleys.
I'd always imagined Spain as a fairly dry country, but Galicia was trying to prove the opposite and at day's end we wound up alongside yet another broad stretch of water as shown below.
Our accommodation for the night was nearby in a small and quite picturesque little village.
But the guest-house we were in was strangely built around a large rock that actually intruded into the living area. And, nearby, was another attractively little village deep in the mountains.
The following morning we headed off to see two more rural enterprises, both very modern and on a huge scale that removed some pre-conceptions that much of Spanish agriculture would be small- scale and rather impoverished. One of the businesses we visited was a large winery and the other an egg-laying factory! Let's start with the winery, whose produce we tasted and approved! The entrance was rather grand and much better than many Australian equivalents.
I like this rather surreal picture on the left of the huge processing building! Ethereal isn't it? And here we are at the tasting ceremony.
And the surrounding countryside was very picturesque!
It even had a large viewing platform! And so we move on to the Compomayor egg factory! As you can see from the facade, this is a very large and modern enterprise. The first thing you'll note is me being kitted out in gear to keep out any diseases I might have from hurting the chooks. And the rest of our party were similarly attired. And the first thing we saw were thousands of eggs!
It wasn't long before we realised the scale of the operations! Would you believe that the building we saw above housed 750,000 laying hens in cages, many laying an egg a day! The eggs were conveyed on moving belts to a massive floor where they were automatically scanned and removed if imperfect before going on to be stacked for transport to market.
All we could say was 'wow'! But in many respects the place was a sad one. The chooks were crammed into cages where they barely moved. I gathered that their expected life-span would be one year after which they'd end up on plates as schnitzels or chicken Kievs or in take-away wraps or burgers. So theirs was not much of an existence!! I suppose that Australia has similar processing systems, but I'm not familiar as to where they are or what goes on inside.
AS
I'd always imagined Spain as a fairly dry country, but Galicia was trying to prove the opposite and at day's end we wound up alongside yet another broad stretch of water as shown below.
Our accommodation for the night was nearby in a small and quite picturesque little village.
But the guest-house we were in was strangely built around a large rock that actually intruded into the living area. And, nearby, was another attractively little village deep in the mountains.
The following morning we headed off to see two more rural enterprises, both very modern and on a huge scale that removed some pre-conceptions that much of Spanish agriculture would be small- scale and rather impoverished. One of the businesses we visited was a large winery and the other an egg-laying factory! Let's start with the winery, whose produce we tasted and approved! The entrance was rather grand and much better than many Australian equivalents.
I like this rather surreal picture on the left of the huge processing building! Ethereal isn't it? And here we are at the tasting ceremony.
And the surrounding countryside was very picturesque!
It even had a large viewing platform! And so we move on to the Compomayor egg factory! As you can see from the facade, this is a very large and modern enterprise. The first thing you'll note is me being kitted out in gear to keep out any diseases I might have from hurting the chooks. And the rest of our party were similarly attired. And the first thing we saw were thousands of eggs!
It wasn't long before we realised the scale of the operations! Would you believe that the building we saw above housed 750,000 laying hens in cages, many laying an egg a day! The eggs were conveyed on moving belts to a massive floor where they were automatically scanned and removed if imperfect before going on to be stacked for transport to market.
All we could say was 'wow'! But in many respects the place was a sad one. The chooks were crammed into cages where they barely moved. I gathered that their expected life-span would be one year after which they'd end up on plates as schnitzels or chicken Kievs or in take-away wraps or burgers. So theirs was not much of an existence!! I suppose that Australia has similar processing systems, but I'm not familiar as to where they are or what goes on inside.
AS
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