An Impossible Dream
Namaste!
This is an unusual title for a travel series. "James who?" I hear you say.
The Honorable James Campbell was many things: an esteemed Australian (colonial) politician; a colleague of Alfred Deakin, who went on to be the 2nd Prime Minister of Australia; a man of great foresight, and, I deduce, intellect; an adventurous and exotic traveller; and my great grandfather. Much has been written about him, some by me, and elsewhere.
It is these last two which re the focus of this page.
James travelled to India and beyond in 1886, and for many years I had dreamed that I might emulate at least part of his trip, and in April 2025 it came to pass. This was my seventh and I suspect last trip to the high Himalayas. I may go back again, but not to very high altitudes (in my case that being anything around or above 4,000 metres); the years have somewhat caught up with me.
But this was the most magic trip, and I rather think a fitting end to my high altitude adventures. James wrote extensively about his experience trying to reach the slopes of the great mountain Kanchenjunga*, the third highest in the world, and the challenges he experienced being caught in a blizzard at over 4,000 metres. My experiences weren't quite as challenging as that, but not without incident all the same. You can read about it here.
* The photo above shows Kanchenjunga, taken at dawn on a bitterly cold Sunday 29th April 2025. That's her, centre of photo, just under the left of the cloud bank, perhaps 20 klms from where I was. Closer, I think, than James managed to get.