Jacki Hill-Murphy MA, FRGS, is an explorer, writer and speaker who has travelled to some of the most inhospitable places on earth to re-create the journeys of daring women adventurers from the past. In tracking valiant women who left inhibition at home and journeyed into the unknown, Hill-Murphy pays tribute to their invincible spirits and achievements.
She has followed in the footsteps of Victorian explorers Isabella Bird who travelled by yak across the Digar-La in Ladakh, India; Mary Kingsley, who pioneered the route to the 13,255 summit of Mount Cameroon; and Kate Marsden who trudged from Moscow to Siberia in search of a cure for leprosy. Hill-Murphy also braved piranha-infested waters in a dugout canoe to replicate the 1769 expedition of Isabel Godin, the only survivor of a 42-person, 4000-mile expedition along the Amazon River. Jacki says: “We are all adventuresses who need to travel to be who we are and we are better people for it.” She has written two books: ‘Adventuresses, rediscovering daring voyages into the unknown’ and ‘The Extraordinary Tale of Kate Marsden and my journey across Siberia in her footsteps’ and numerous stories and articles about her project.
Website: www.jackihill-murphy.co.uk
Twitter: @jackihillmurphy
Details of this year’s festival programme can be found elsewhere on this website.
