Vale, Dakar Dingo – Chief Happiness Officer 2010-2024

It is with heavy hearts that Nomad Stays announces the passing of its Chief Happiness Officer, Dakar Dingo.

Dakar was a much-loved member of our family, and a true nomad at heart who explored a total of 24 countries with Mark & Linda.

Here he was on his last day working, helping with a video production for Nomad Stays.

A life of Adventure

Dakar was born near Gympie, in Queensland, Australia. A short distance from Fraser Island (K’gari), where the last remaining group of pure bred Australian dingos live.

Born on a farm he was soon orphaned when the farmer died where he was collected and move to the RSPCA at Noosa, aged 2.5 months.

He wasn’t at the refuge for long as he was soon adopted by Mark & Linda, and was heading to a new 20 ha farm in nearby Eumundi, Queensland.

Eumundi, Qld 2010

Eumundi is home to Australia’s largest farmers market held twice a week and Dakar soon became a regular visitor, and much loved by the stall holders.

His socialisation amongst the markets each week was supplemented by great training from The Canine Classroom and top quality home-made food from Ocean Forest Farm.

With the neighbours cattle often getting out and running through his property and onto the public road, Dakar, soon learnt to put his natural cattle herding skills into action to return John’s cattle back to their yards.

At age 3 he moved with the family to nearby Lake McDonald where he would often sit and watch Linda learn to row.

His other great hangout was at the GoFly offices at Caloundra and Caboolture Airports where Mark and Linda learned to fly light sport planes.

Circumnavigating Australia 2015-2019

Starting in 2015 at age 5, Dakar became a digital nomad as Mark and Linda started a big trip around Australia.

We can say he was a digital nomad as he had his own social media accounts by then and was a regular photography talent at Business in Bare Feet.

MOVING TO EUROPE 2019

In 2019 Dakar jumped into his travel crate and flew off to Switzerland.

It tooks a few months to get organised as there are special vaccinations needed for Europe for diseases like Rabies which is unknown in Australia. Plus only certain flights travel with pets for such a long way. In Dakar’s case he flew with Thai Airways and had a stopover in Bangkok.

Linda has there in Zurich to greet him and help him after the long flight. Apart from being a little dehydrated (he hated drinking while travelling) he was in good health and spirits.

The first few days were a bit of a culture shock though – being permitted into cafes, restaurants, supermarkets and hotels was all new to him. But Dakar learned quickly.

BOUNCING AROUND EUROPE

While Dakar was legal in Europe with his Pet Passport unfortunately the French Government were pretty poor in meeting their own timeframes for migrating entrepreneurs. Mark & Linda had to bounce through various countries using their Aussie tourist visa while waiting for the French Government.

After a few months in the Pyrenees foothills looking after another dog Dakar and Family moved to southern Germany. Dakar had fun learning how to hitch hike on BlaBla Car.

SOUTHERN GERMANY

Lobbing into southern germany within a comfortable drive to Chambery in France we lucked out meeting a heap of lovely people in a little village. While sitting in the local pub and old farmer lady started talking with us telling us how she lived in Australia for many years as the personal secretary to the IBM CEO. Dakar also befriended the local Mayor, and his dogs, and became regular walk buddies around the Germany-Swiss Border.

ITALY, ALBANIA, GREECE

Hiring a car to drive to Bari, Italy Mark dropped Dakar and Linda off at the ferry to Albania, where they hired a car to drive to Greece where we helping freinds from Australia compete in one of the worlds largest startup competititions.

Driving in Albania … is, well… interesting at the best of time. With Linda getting frustrated Dakar learned to keep his cool and stay out of the way.

Mark later joined Linda and Dakar in Greece after riding his motorbike around the long way.

After a few weeks in Thessaloniki also with great dog-friendly friends, we all trotted off to Bulgaria.

The Visa thing did get a little sticky on the Greece-Bulgarian border as Greece insisted Linda had overstayed her visa. Dakar was fine. In the end the whole bilateral visa thing was well understood by everyone and we were let go.

bulgaria and snow

Needing some non-Schengen and non-Bilateral Visa time we all trotted off to Bulgaria (outside Schengen Zone at that stage).

Mark was lucky to get his French visa towards the end of 2019 which opened up more opportunities to travel. Arriving back in Bulgaria before the first snow he was lucky to witnesss Dakar seeing snow for the first time.

Romania and spain

Dakar got to visit Romania to catch a flight to Spain where he hung out with the lovely motorbike racing and adventure community outside of Barcelona.

Then a few months on the coast near Valencia where he had his own private beach and lots of other dogs to play with, thanks to an expat British guys named Dean who rescued dogs and walked the El Camino Trail with them each year.

Dakar got to meet ‘Noosa’ there in Spain. This lovely puppy had been named ‘Noosa’ after his owner enjoyed her stay in Australia so much. Noosa, of course was Dakar first real home in Australia back in 2010.

Linda flew off to France to get her visa from Spain. Sadly, the French government cocked it up again so she then flew off to the UK and Ireland to escape the Schengen zone again.

Back to france 2020

With a visa appointment setup in France for Linda now scheduled we hitched a lift with Martin and his family, visiting from Australia, to Marseille where we hung to with Penny and Pierre for awhile. Pen had worked with Linda in Saudi Arabia some time back and her little dog, Sydney, was soon best mates with Dakar.

With the threat of covid starting Mark and Dakar quickly hired a car and drove up to Chambéry to meet LInda for another visa appointment.

Having scouted out the region on a previous trip we all booked a ‘gite’, a farmstay near Chambéry.

Little did we know that we’d be locked into that gite 2 hours after we arrived.

Yenne, france become home

Locked in for covid meant we had the 20ha property to ourselves for months. With lots of forests on the property and surrounding Dakar got to become a forest dog. While exploring the trails he met and befriended other dog owners who we soon became great friends with.

With the association rules relaxing as covid went on we enjoyed many great parties at ‘Le Hermitage’ with the owner, and his friends and family.

Linda finally receives french residency 2020

After 18 months Linda finally received her French Tech Visa and the 4 year residency. No longer did we need to become covid refugees or visa oversayers.

French residency opened up a lot more opportunities for Dakar to explore Europe.

Back to Bansko 2021

So off to Bulgaria we went again, this time in our own car. (The motorbike had been stranded in Bansko for covid and we needed to retrieve it from Rob, the owners of Bears Lair bike storage facility.)

Madeira beckons

While in Bulgaria Mark and Linda got the invitation to go to Madeira as part of a travel startup cohort accelerator program.

So off travelling again Dakar went. This time overland to Greece, ferry to Italy, across Italy, ferry to Barcelona. Time to catchup with old friends in Barcelona and then over to the spanish west coast where Dakar got to meet our team memebr, Lena, for the first time. After the Spanish surf spots it was down to Lisbon and the flights to Maderia.

With a shortage of pet friendly accommodation in Funchal the family lodged itself down nar Ponto do Sol and commuted to Funchal most days of the week.

The mountain walks around the levadas soon became one of Dakar favourite things to do.

Alghough at this time we had his first major scan by a vet. he’d developed a largish mass on his side and so MRI was required. Luckily it turned out to be non-malignent and quite a normal fatty mass that many dogs get.

Sagres, Portugal 2022

Arriving back on the Portuguese mainland we moved down to Sagres at the very bottom of Europe for awhile. Hanging with Maria aka The Bulgarian Mermaid, was great fun for Dakar too. He loved his oldest friends the most.

Back to the SAvoie in France

A meandering trip back to France saw Dakar reconnect with friends in Spain and his mate Sydney again near Marseille before heading back up to the Savoie.

Albania beckons 2022

With some speaking responsibilities in Albania the family took off again overland. This time Dakar got to explore all of Croatia, and Montenegro. Reconnecting with old freinds from Mackay, Australia now resident in Mantenegro was great fun for him. Let alone the beaches he loved so much.

Woofing at the Tirana Nomad Fest added another startup event to Dakar’s resume.

PloDIV, Bulgaria

After Tirana we took the Bulgarian Mermaid back to her home town of Plovdiv. And then onto Bansko again after a few weeks.

Needing some more beach time we headed down to the Thessaloniki region again and hung out of the beach there in our favourite apartments.

change of plans, Back to albania 2022

Receiving an emergency call from Australia about her father, Linda quickly jumped onto a plane back home leaving Dakar with Mark in Greece.

Mark and Dakar then went back to Albania and explored the southern regions and castles in more detail. Vlore became their home for nearly 3 months.

time to visit Andrej in slovakia 2023

With Linda on an extended visit to Australia and needing a break she booked a much needed visit to India on her way back to Europe.

India was looking good for a place for us to base ourselves as its a single flight to Australia should Linda’s father take more turns for the worse. Sadly though while investigating we discovered that India refuses to allow travellers to brind their pets with them. So for the first time Mark & Linda could get visa’s easily but Dakar couldn’t.

While we were waiting and planning Mark & Dakar took off to see old friend Andrej in Slovakia.

Crossing more borders into Serbia and Hungary were a few new countries for Dakar.

Andrej was sa dear friend from Australia that met Dakar on the first day we brought him home to Eumundi, QLD. After his mother passed, Andrej returned to Slovakia, and so Dakar got to re-connect with one of his oldest friends in the world, albeit on the other side of the planet.

While in Slovakia we rented a house from a lovely couple in a nearby town. Dakar got to visit Austria for the first time as he collected Linda arriving back from Australia and India.

France again for summer 2023

With Schengen time expiring again we all took off back to France again to hang with friends over summer. if you haven’t experienced a summer in France you don’t know what you’re missing.

A visit from old Noosa friends Ron and Sarah was such a delight for Dakar. Ron, a former pilot, had once offered to take Dakar on a flight in his Baron while we all lived near Noosa. Seeing them in Europe was becoming normal for Dakar as many of his friends made the journey around.

dakar has a cancer scare Autumn 2023

As summer turned into autumn Dakar ended up limping a bit. He seemed to have a cut on one of his feet that wouldn’t get better.

A visit to the vet and tests showed he had a cancerour tumour. We experimented with different treatments and medicines for awhile without a lot of success. While Mark was visiting the Philippines, Dakar had a cancerous toe amputated.

He made a good recovery although the vet did warn us the disease was likely to come back.

mel arrives 2023

We quickly forgot about this setup back as Mel arrived in France.

Aussie friend Mel had a sudden change of life situation when her husband, Mark suddenly passed. Being a little lost she jumped on a plan to visit Europe for the first time in her life. Dakar again was in heaven, He’d got to meet Mark, Mel and William after they migrated from Yass to Queensland with our help back around 2012.

Reconnecting with Mel again after so many years made this month. And we promptly did another road trip through Europe. With Mel he explored more of France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Slovakia. After a few months Mel took off on her own further explroations of Czechia, Italy and Hungary.

After a few more weeks in Slovakia Dakar got to meet (fellow Aussie) Peter in Prague and explore Czechia for the first time.

Germany for Easter 2024

Travelling across Czechia we all headed to Matthias and Alex’s place near Gottingen in Germany. Dakar got to hang with little, 18 year old friend, Pisi for a few weeks. Dakar and Pisi had met in Greece a few years before when Matthias and Alex had come down for a break to Thessaloniki.

Exploring the German forests was always good times for Dakar although Pisi was getting on and didn’t walk as far any more. (Pisi sadly passed in July 2024)

France again for summer 2024 – the heat hits

Back to the Savoie again for the French summer Dakar was happy to be home. He regularly accommpanied Mark and Linda as they hiked along the Rhone or explored new forest parks.

Summer was hot in 2024 though and Dakar grew quite lethargic and struggled with breathing. While he still loved exploring he was limited to about 5km walks by now, and no hills.

With scans showing a large fibrous mass in his lungs we, and the vet, thought his lung capacity was the issue. We tried various antibiotics and anti-viral treatments to try and counter a possible viral infections that love the hot most conditions in late summer.

THE LAST VIDEO SHOOT

Little did we know that his end was coming faster than we expected, we did actually have Dakar working with us on a video shoot for Nomad Stays on one of his last days. While panting strongly his spirit was so high as you can see.

And a strong spirit was always his badge of honor. He was even running up the stairs on the day he died to get his daily sausignon treat from our landlord, Isabelle.

no, its not just the heat

With his breathing struggling we were back to the vet several times and this time we concentrated on his windpipe that was appearing constricted.

Sadly, an Xray and operation showed that yes, it was 90% constrained by a large mass wrapped around his windpipe. And it was inoperable.

This was such devastating news.

Mark and Linda raced around to the vet to look at options but after seeing Dakar struggle even on oxygen after his operation we knew his time was up.

While we really wanted to give him another night at home with us we knew his ittle body wouldn’t take it. His body had finally given up on the life of such an adventurous, globe trotting dog. So, we took the decision to put him out of his misery. (Anyone that has gone through this process knows how kind it really is, and our vets were superb with their support of both Dakar and us.)

resting in his favourite savoie forests

Dakar is now buried on a hill, in his favourite Savoie forests, where he can see down the valley and the mountains in the background.

Behind him is a little forest chapel we loved to explore with him.

This little adventurous soul from Australia that explored