An Impossible Dream
Namaste!
This is an unusual title for a travel series. "James who?" I hear you say.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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* 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.