‘WE’RE THE REAL-LIFE FLINTSTONES!'
MEET THE COUPLE WHO LOVE THEIR STONE-AGE LIFE!
Snacking on bugs, hunting prey with arrows and wearing clothes made from rabbit fur, Naomi Walmsley, 36, and husband Dan Westall, 38, aren’t your average couple.
The pair have transformed a patch of woods just 10 minutes from a busy highway into a Stone Age village fit for Fred, Wilma and Pebbles.
With a lifelong passion for the caveman era, it wasn’t until 2010 that Naomi and Dan learnt how to live like our ancestors.
After attending an intense four-week course in America, the couple, from the UK, were finally set to start building their own caveman paradise.
“While on the course we lived in the wild, we hunted and prepared the food, we foraged, we made our own weapons, we made our own tools and learned how to make fire by friction.
“We even found clay from the ground to make pots and made all of our clothes from dead animals,” Naomi tells New Idea.
The couple first met 13 years ago while working at a hostel and have spent every day since working and living together, sharing a passion for the outdoors.
“We are modern Stone Age people, that’s what I always tell people. The kids who meet us actually think we’re actually from the Stone Age as we’re nearly always in full dress,” Naomi explains.
Naomi and Dan have two young daughters, Wren, 20 months, and Maggie, 6, while Dan also has an older daughter, Sam, who lives in London.
The couple refer to themselves as the modern Flintstones – and while there is no Dino on the scene, there is a giant statue of the mammoth
called Matilda on site in their mini village.
Set in the middle of the woods at their Stone Age village, Naomi and Dan run the Outback2basics centre, offering a range of programs to educate schoolchildren in the skills and life of the Stone Age – from painting, eating bugs and making arrows to the workings of a compost toilet.
“It’s amazing being able to give kids a glimpse into how our ancestors lived. It’s good for kids to get back to nature and to play outdoors,” Dan says.
In just over a year, the couple have invited more than a thousand kids to come and experience the same way of living. But for the outdoor-mad couple, it’s not just when they’re in the village that they dress up.
“I dress up like a caveman most days. Occasionally you’ll forget and go and get petrol and catch yourself in the reflection and think, ‘oh damn, it’s happened again’,” Dan tells New Idea. But with a face full of paint, it’s impossible for strangers not to stare when the pair are out and about.
Mum-of-two Naomi describes her outfits as “cave woman fashion” with throws made primarily of rabbit fur, while Dan wears tines made from deer antlers round his neck – and the pair admit they do get some funny looks when they turn up at the petrol station in full Palaeolithic garb.
“It’s pretty funny, the cashiers won’t say anything. They don’t go ‘wow, are you going to a fancy dress party?’ I have to say, ‘I know I’m dressed as a cave woman’,” Naomi says.
Naomi and Dan spend their spare time making arrows and enjoying the outdoors with their young children. However, the couple do try and live in the 21st century when possible.
“We don’t routinely go shopping in these clothes, it’s only when we are going to the Stone Age village.
“And we don’t insist the kids have worm soup or hunt for our dinner – but we do enjoy mostly all our family time outside.
“We know how to survive outdoors after living like it ourselves in 2010, and teaching others the skills you need is amazing,” Naomi says.
The couple thank the Lynx Vilden’s Stone Age immersion project in America for their real-life adaptations to Stone Age life eight years ago.
“We had no communications with the outside world for weeks on end, no mobile phones, so if something went wrong, it would go drastically wrong.
“There were no provisions for emergencies. We were living like primitive people would have done, and do,” Dan says.
The couple brought their experience back home.
“It was great to have that experience of no backup, as it was real.
“It was us and our wits, and we survived.”
One of the activities they do is to allow children to make real cave art using traditional red and yellow ochres and charcoal.
They also show them how the art would have looked in Stone Age caves, using torches.
“It really puts them in place, and really gives them the understanding that some of the oldest cave art which is just lines and symbols is 60,000 years old, and some of the animal art is 45,000 years old,” Naomi explains.
The couple are now set to publish their first book, Forest School Adventure, which provides essential bushcraft basics and Stone Age survival skills, plus outdoor play ideas.
They hope it will encourage the next generation to understand and care for their natural environment.
“We might not insist the kids have worm soup, but we just want to do anything we can to encourage children to go outside.”