During the cold winter months, I mastered the art of lighting a fire, and I had come to love our joyous companion; the fire was a kind of living being that always rekindled my spirits. ... It had taught me its main principles: it always needs space and air. And, once a fire is burning well, it detests being disturbed in its heart. Fire and human beings have a lot in common that way. (c)

This book tells her story, including the very practical aspects of such a life: her difficulties learning to hunt with a bow and arrow, struggles to create a warm environment in which to live, attempts to cross raging rivers safely and find ways through the rugged mountains and dense bush. This is interwoven with her adjustment to a very slow pace of life, her relationship with her much older husband, her thoughtful observations of the few other people they encounter in this time, and her growing awareness of a strong spiritual connection to the natural world. Miriam Lancewood is attractive, energetic, tough and eloquent - and just 34 when her memoir was published in 2017 . She had a story to tell and people who heard her wanted more. Hence, she was commissioned (I presume by Allen & Unwin) to write a memoir of her nomadic exploits in the rugged, wilderness of New Zealand’s South Island with her partner, Peter, old enough to be a father-figure. In a way, rivers are kinds of beings too,’ he said. ‘Lakes and pools are calm, the river is busy, the ocean endless, yet they are all of the same essence. Water is a symbol of the eternal.’ Miriam (1983) is geboren in de Achterhoek en werkt als lerares lichamelijke opvoeding. Als ze 20 is, leert ze in India de 30 jaar oudere Peter kennen met wie ze een relatie krijgt. Peter komt uit Nieuw Zeeland en voelt zich opgesloten in de maatschappij en wil daarom een eenvoudig leven gaan leiden in de wildernis van Nieuw Zeeland. Miriam gaat met hem mee! Tot nu toe was ze vegetarier maar hier zal ze zelf moeten jagen wat ze helemaal niet kan. Ook kopen ze af en toe voorraden in winkels (van hun spaargeld) en logeren ze soms bij andere mensen. Gelukkig zijn ze als Peter ernstig ziek wordt op tijd bij een kliniek. Zo zie je maar dat de maatschappij ook best wel een paar voordelen heeft. Hoe dan ook, ze leven dus niet volledig in de wildernis maar gaat het meer om maandelange trektochten

About this book

When I entered Lothlórien, it suddenly seemed ludicrous to hurry. There was absolutely no logical reason to be so hasty; in fact, it was safer to go slowly. I stopped, looked at the beauty around me and realised that I did everything at great speed. It was an automatic response to my life in school and the workplace. Nature, however, had plenty of time. I discarded the invisible whip. (c) And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place having been prepared there by God, so that they should nourish her there one thousand two hundred sixty days. I no longer had any fear because our valley felt like my home. We often slept deeply for 12 hours, and the effect of so much good rest was an increased energy. After three months, I felt more energetic than ever before in my life, and this energy brought with it the delightful feeling of living in a very healthy body. (c) There’s a lot of drama out there in the wilds and Miriam knows how to spin a good yarn with tension, colour and light, making this a gripping and engaging read. Reminiscent of both adventure writing like Wild and nature writing like H is for Hawk this is perfect for those exploring the idea of living an authentic, real life. The seed of their idea was planted in India where they met 12 years ago; Peter, then 52, was a former sheep farmer, arborist and university lecturer, and Miriam, then 22, wanted to see the world. Most men my age are fat and can’t walk for long. They’re envious. Mostly of her

Don’t write it down. … See it for yourself. Words are meaningless compared to direct experience.’ (с) Many rivers to cross: Miriam and Peter on their way. Her one regret is that she is not allowed to use her Steyr Mannlicher .308 rifle in Europe. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Observer If you’re going off grid, prepping is key. Miriam and Peter spent months training for that first winter in South Marlborough, New Zealand: long, demanding treks, first-aid courses; reading survival and foraging books – working out by the spoonful exactly how much flour, pulses, tea bags they’d need. They practised seeing in the dark with night walks. Miriam isn’t a conspiracy theorist but she’s proud she has now learned survival skills, in case of Armageddon. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her to be nourished for 1,260 days. and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.Miriam and Peter often use the word “trapped” to describe how other people live. They never intend to have children and rely on another modern innovation – Miriam’s IUD – to make sure they don’t. They say it would be impossible to live in the wild with kids. So are kids a trap? “For us it would be a trap,” says Miriam. “You have to have a regular income. You have to settle down.” She laughs: “It scares me just thinking about it.” Miriam describes how men they do meet on their travels will often suddenly open up about their personal lives: “They say they wish their wives would come out hunting with them or if they had a choice again, they would never have children. That was the end of their freedom, they say.” Men we meet say if they had a choice again, they would never have children. That was the end of their freedom, they say

I gobbled up this book and it led me to do a lot of soul searching. What really is the point of climbing the career ladder to earn money to buy things you don’t need? Can I be content with less, or different? What does my soul really long for? Am I brave enough to chase it if it means rejecting social convention? This book could easily have descended into fetishising a way of life which many people have no choice but to lead, and for them is actually incredibly difficult. In fact, it's a ‘self-fulfilment’ exploration on the importance of individuals being able to seek a lifestyle that provides you with meaning and mental peace, not matter what that is.Peter turned round and put my arms over his shoulders. ‘Now it’s just us,’ he said, embracing me. I took a deep breath. ‘I feel like we have finally come home.’ Peter nodded. ‘This is the world we were all born into.’ Very strange,’ said Peter, when our visitor had departed again. ‘When I looked at you just then, you appeared so old and worn-out, but now you look normal again. Even the landscape looked kind of ugly!’ I was astonished, because I had felt precisely the same thing. ‘It is as if we were looking at the world through that man’s eyes.’ I think it’ll be a bit of an adjustment in the beginning, don’t you?’ I sounded far more coherent than I felt. By the age of 16, she had moved to Sydney and was living independently, sometimes on the streets, working as a croupier and artist’s model among other things. I tell her that I imagine an incredibly super-confident girl. She laughs, and says she was anything but. Her childhood had left her with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. “My sense of myself was that I was weak, incompetent, unable to succeed in everything. So the preparation for the journey in particular and the journey itself was a self-proving, and it worked.”

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't live how they lived, but getting through the book was really painful at times. It felt judgemental and condescending towards people who don't have the luxury of giving up everything for the wilderness. Both Miriam and Peter justify their lifestyle by contrasting it to city life, which in their eyes is a “self-imposed prison”. For people that value freedom like them, a conventional life with a job in a city is “imprisoning with its blinding, monotonous routine”. According to Peter, the predictability from living in a city “creates a sense of comfort, which in turn created a resistance to stepping into the unknown”. He adds “it is difficult for a mind that has evolved in human civilisation to reconnect with nature”. Miriam also makes compelling arguments for their lifestyle, for instance, “a lot of people work for years to save their money for later, but by the time they have enough to do something different they don’t have the courage for it, then it is too late” says Miriam. De cover is precies zoals Miriam op jacht ging. Ze leefden voornamelijk van de dieren, die toch maar gedood worden zonder ze op te eten, omdat Nieuw-Zeeland de dieren van vroeger zonder menselijke inbreng terug willen. To top it all off, I found it very hypocritical to keep looking down on modern comforts yet keep enjoying them too and being in an "idea of wilderness" where she hunts and roughs it out like cave men. OK. That makes twelve a day, a hundred and twenty for ten days, two hundred and forty for twenty days . . . So that’s about three hundred and sixty a month, or a thousand and eighty for three months.’ (c)The timeless beauty is just astonishing,’ I said shyly. ‘I want to try living without any barrier between the naked earth and myself. Cooking on fires, drinking pure water, sleeping on the ground . . . The wilderness might be able to teach us something, if we have time to listen.’ (c) The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. We will be so careful, and I will write you long letters. We’ll meet hunters who will post them for me.’ Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.