Sir Edmund in Indian travel film

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 15

Sir Edmund in Indian travel film

By

Colin Monteath

The New Zealand High Commissioner to India, Sir Edmund Hillary, is taking part in a film project which will show his work with the Indian people and countryside.

The film will be called “Ascent of India,” and will be similar in some respects to Sir Edmund’s “Ocean to Sky" expedition and film in 1977. That film used jet boats to travel up the Ganges from the Bay of Bengal to the river’s source in the Himalayas. "Ascent of India” travels overland from the Nerala region in the

southern tip of India to the Himalayan mountains in the north.

Trains are being used to reach Rajasthan before the expedition changes to camels for a crossing of the Rajasthan desert Villages across the fertile Gangetic plain are being visited before three days of sailing in a “countryboat” on the Ganges itself.

The expedition and film will conclude in the snows of the Manali region in north-west India’s Himalayan foothills, with a possible ascent of a “very modest peak.”

With Sir Edmund are

Mr Jim Wilson, his wife, Ann and their family, from Christchurch, and Dr Mike Gill and Mrs Linda Gill and their family from Auckland, all of whom are well used to being swept oft on Hillary adventures.

Filming has already been done at the Pushkar camel fair and the Sonepur elephant fair. Work on the film started early in January, and will continue until mid-Febru-ary under the direction of an Australian freelance film-maker, Michael Dillon.

Mr Dillon not only

made the outstanding “Ocean to Sky” film, but has made several films in Nepal featuring Sir Edmund and his Himalayan Trust aid projects. He also made the film of the 1984 Australian ascent of the North Face of Mount Everest

Filming “Ascent of India” began soon after Mr Dillon’s return from Nepal where, with the celebrated English filmmaker, Leo Dickinson, he filmed an Australian expedition attempting to fly hot air balloons over Mount Everest. Spectacular flights were made round Katmandu, the An-

napurna region and in the Khumbu area under Everest.

Sir Edmund Himalayan Trust work in Nepal continues in spite of his heavy work commitment in the Indian subcontinent. He visits his beloved Sherpa region as often as possible to oversee the aid work made possible by United States, Canadian and New Zealand money and voluntary labour.

Two New Zealanders, Messrs Murray Jones, a noted mountaineer and surveyor from Cromwell, and Murray Ellis, an engineer from Arrowtown, are working with the Sherpa people on rerouting a track and bridge system between Namche and Lukla that was destroyed after a glacial lake burst high in the Himalayas during the 1985 monsoon. Both men are long-term Himalayan Trust workers.