Living in the New Zealand wilderness

Dutch-native Miriam Lancewood and her husband Peter roamed through the New Zealand wilderness as modern nomads. Miriam wrote a book about the experience and talks with us about how living in nature changed her.

“A friend dropped us off deep in the wilderness. I was fully prepared for everything except one thing: boredom. The first few days I was in a total panic—there were no more plans and it felt like I no longer had a future. I ran around cleaning the hut and trying to hunt in vain. It took a couple of weeks before my mind relaxed and then nature came to life. The beautiful, ancient trees and the clouds above the mountains pushed me through—I began to enjoy it.

Some winter nights we slept for fourteen hours; that makes you a whole other person. We rarely had disagreements. Of course I got upset when Peter kept on talking when I wanted to go to sleep or if he spilled something on his shirt but then I thought: Why does it matter? There is no one here to see it.”