About Biokovina Wild

The Biokovina Project

With a love for the uplifting feeling that comes from being in the mountains at my core I travelled all over the world trying to find a balance between living an off grid self sustaining life and staying engaged with the wider world.

I finally stumbled upon the kingdom of Bosnia and more specifically Biokovina.

There is a sense of freedom here rarely found in Europe but also a people with European sensibilities and a wicked black sense of humour.

I spent the last 10 years integrating myself into the small farming community here.

Most of our neighbours live a simple and deeply rewarding life subsistence farming small patches of land that have been in their families for centuries.

It has been wonderful to learn directly from people who were still working the land in traditional ways.

My first fumbling attempts at permaculture caused much laughter in the village.

I ended up falling in love with this place and the people so much so that I was inspired to want to share it with others.

With a local friend and Sufi master Fadil I slowly started to develop my properties into a retreat centre.

Consciously taking time and doing all the work by hand, savouring each step.

We tried to always use natural building materials wherever possible and use sheepwool for the insulation of the buildings.

We went to visit a shepard in an incredibly remote part of the Bosnian wilderness to collect 2T of sheepwool.

Winding our way up treacherous mountain roads finally we made it and once we had loaded up the van the Shepard whispered to us that he had something to show us.

We were then taken to his home and plied with traditional foods and beverages and after eating we were led to an outbuilding - and there he was…

Not much more than a little scrap of fur / dirty shaking and frightened.

We would come to know him as “Stone”.

I had done lots of work with wildlife before - working with various animal sanctuaries and working on wildlife documentaries.   

But I needed a moment to consider it deeply.

24 hours later we came back and “Stone” came into our lives and life since then has never been the same.