FROM LIFE IN A TENT TO LIFE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Having the chance to update MiNDFOOD readers on what has happened in her life since her My Story is a full-circle moment for Miriam Lancewood. “It’s really nice because MiNDFOOD was really the beginning of our change of life,” she says.

A book publisher happened to read the article and contacted Lancewood asking if she wanted to write a book. It had taken her two months just to write the two pages of her My Story – she didn’t think it would be possible for her to write an entire book. But she ended up writing Woman in the Wilderness in five months and it went on to become an international bestseller. She’s since written her second book, Wild at Heart, co-edited anthology book Wilder Journeys, had 10 television crews come to document her unconventional way of living and attended 11 writers’ festivals. “So that MiNDFOOD article was basically the end of our quiet existence,” she says. “Since then, we’ve been full in the spotlight.”

Lancewood and husband Peter Raine did maintain their nomadic way of life however, until a health crisis ultimately resulted in a rethink. Raine fell ill while the couple were driving across the Australian Outback, and was diagnosed with acute kidney failure. He was eventually diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant. “But that would entail living in a town near a hospital to do dialysis, and to be completely dependent on a medical institution,” says Lancewood, “so Peter said, ‘No, I’d rather die than go on dialysis’.” His chance of survival was 3 per cent, but miraculously, his health improved without treatment.

Together the couple returned to the wilderness two years ago, but realised things were no longer the same. “We sat around the campfire, in our tent, eating some hare that I had just shot, and we looked at each other and said, ‘We have done this for many, many years now. Maybe it’s time for something else’,” Lancewood says.

They decided to live in Europe, and they moved into a little cottage they owned in Bulgaria, which is where they remain today. They offer courses on philosophy in nature, and people visit from all over the world to take part. The couple continues to live without the home comforts most of us are accustomed to such as a bathroom and hot water. “It’s very primitive but we enjoy it, and for us it’s luxurious after living in a tent for 10 years.”