Jono Lineen is a curator at the National Museum of Australia. Jono was the first person to traverse the Western Himalayas, walking solo 2700km from Pakistan to Nepal. Dr Lineen’s research interests are in creativity and storytelling, and how the body can be a medium, a catalyst and a framework to generate both. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the start of the ‘Troubles’, moved to Canada as a young boy and spent almost 20 years traveling the world working as a forester, geologist, ski racer, deep sea fisher, mountain guide, humanitarian relief worker and writer. His books include River Trilogy, Into the Heart of the Himalayas and Perfect Motion.
Publisher
Into the Heart of the Himalayas
On 28th Nov 1.00 pm to 1.40 pm
Jono Lineen is the first person who traveled the Western Himalayas solo on foot from Pakistan to Nepal. He says that for him this is has been a pilgrimage for him and while trekking the Great Himalayas was the first journey and writing the book was the second journey. Alvira diwan is a clinical psychologist and asked Jono why he chose to travel alone. According to her human beings are social beings and Jono was at that time dealing with the death of his brother.
Jono said that he was used to being alone and in fact he was not without human contact for more than three days. He was also well received by the village people wherever he went. They offered him tea and a place to sleep immediately. This would not be the case if he would be in a group of people. Usually people who travel in groups don’t get the chance to interact with the local people because they are being interactive within their own group.