Heard Island – climbing Big Ben – filming The Great White Whale
Sunday, 3 November 2024No, Mt Kosciuszko at 2228metres is not the highest mountain in Australia – I finally got around to making the stroll to the top of that peak in 2021. If you want to reach the high point on undisputed Australian territory – ie not somewhere in Antarctica – then you still have to head a long way south: to Heard Island. First go to the middle point between Australia and South Africa and then turn south. When you get there Mawson Peak, an active volcano summit on the Big Ben massif, towers straight from the icy sea to 2745metres.
▲ Rising up out of the Southern Ocean, Heard Island certainly looks like a great white whale (photo Wikimedia, Tristannew)
Since merely getting to Heard Island is difficult (two weeks from Perth?) and making a landing on the island is far from simple it’s hardly surprising that climbing to that Australian high point is not an easy feat. After a number of failed attempts Big Ben was finally ‘conquered’ in 1964 by an expedition led by Warwick Deacock. The team sailed to Heard Island on the schooner Patanela captained by Bill Tilman, a pioneering Everest climber and prolific travel writer who would later disappear en route to the Falkland Islands in 1977, aged 79.
The Great White Whale blends historic footage from that 1964 expedition with modern film by mountain film enthusiast Michael Dillon to produce a classic adventure documentary. Michael is currently touring The Great White Whale around cinemas in Australia and New Zealand in November 2024.
My first Nepal trek was in 1976, up to Thyangboche en route to the Everest Base Camp, although it was not until 2003 that I finally made it to the base camp. I have certainly made assorted other Himalayan treks over the years, but on that first trek Maureen and I also met Michael Dillon, who was there making his first Himalayan film. We even made a very brief appearance in that pioneering Dillon-Himalayan-video, he has certainly made many more since.
