Adventurers' journal

I’m sat here surrounded by chaos as I pack up the house that I have lived in for the last ten years. 2015 sees the jump start of my trying to live a life with fewer needs; fewer possessions, less reliance on ‘the grid’, more time spent reconnecting to the earth. In less than a week I’ll be leaving this home behind and starting on a series of adventures that, I hope, will bring me closer to the life I want to live. Spending time with indigenous people learning and sharing skills, time in nature learning to appreciate it all the more, time spent with friends old and new building a strong community and time alone pushing me to my own limits in the extreme conditions that I thrive in.

Someone who is already doing this is Nirmal Kulkarni. Over the last couple of years, I have been getting to know Nirmal and I have seen the dedication he puts in every day to help protect the environment around him in the Western Ghats of Goa, India. This dedication has been rewarded in terms of more international ecology awards than his mantle piece can handle, it has been rewarded through areas he has worked hard to protect being designated nature reserves and it has been rewarded through growing personal connections to the indigenous peoples living in the forests and the wildlife encounters he has, including discovering new species known to science.

National Geographic Traveller Rewind has been looking back over the last year, and has chosen the article below, written by Nirmal, as one of their must reads from 2014. It’s a short story of a man living simply but with all the knowledge he needs. It seems fitting that The Rainman should present himself just as I’m now choosing to embark on my own simpler life. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.natgeotraveller.in/web-exclusive/web-exclusive-month/the-rainman-from-castle-rock-21/

*We’re working with Nirmal putting together a series of expeditions into the Western Ghats, more details coming in 2015.