So, every journal, like every journey, needs to start somewhere, and this one starts in London, on Tuesday the 18th of August, where Elle and I are staying with Elle’s mum Mary while we wait until September when we arrive at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth (Wales). We will stay there for 4 days, where they will get to have a look at us and we get to have a look at them, and if we like the look of each other, then our adventure will truly begin.

When we returned from our 8 month tour of South America the first thing we did was apply to CAT for a 6 month volunteer role in their woodlands and waterways team. A week ago, we heard that our application(s) were successful and invited to the trial. This Journal is in hope more than anticipation that we will clear the final hurdle.

That possible future will unfold itself on these pages, but if you’ve read this far you might be interested in who we are, and what our plans are. To find out who we are, have a look at our bios. To understand our plan, then we need to go back in time a bit. About a year I think. Then, we had no real plan, no jobs, and were soon to be homeless, as we had to leave Geneva and return to London. Fortunately, despite these circumstances we were not penniless, and we had many options - our task was to choose between them. After discarding many we came up with one we could agree on. We decided to go to COP 30, in Belém (Brazil).

That decision, I see now, was the first in a series of events, adventures – and misadventures – that led us to where we are now. While trying to find a ship we fell in with a group of young activists organising Flotilla for Change, collecting an array of seacraft to coordinate their journey to Belem so that we all arrive together as a symbol of solidarity and sustainability. I was way out of my depth, but this kind of thing was Elle’s bread and butter. We found ourselves organising and hosting a series of interviews with indigenous representatives heading to COP to tell their stories of how climate change was disproportionately affecting them. Some of the most tragic stories I’d ever heard.

This was our first joint adventure into climate activism and we liked it. When we finally joined the Flotilla aboard the cargo schooner Avontuur as crew, we met others who had chosen activism over resigned despair.

Over the ensuing months we were to get up close and personal with nature in a way that our hikes in Switzerland had only hinted might be possible. The Atlantic Ocean itself, a thing of massive wonder, the natural beauty that abounds throughout Brazil, Patagonia, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. We lived and worked in jungles, climbed mountains and volcanoes got drenched by giant waterfalls, kayaked in enormous lakes, climbed palm trees and met many more people on the way who had chosen to work against climate change as opposed to contributing to it.

Our experience, the people we met, and two stints volunteering to help reforest the South American rainforests led us to the desire to do the same thing, but closer to home. I’d always wanted to return to Wales, and where better to help maintain (and possibly expand) a rainforest?

That’s page 1 of this journal. Elle and I are busy learning Cymraeg, more later. Diolch yn Fawr