Antonia Deacock, founder of world's first adventure company dies

Photo of Antonia Deacock from The Australian Travel & Indulgence Website

Back in 1958 Antonia Deacock was one of a team of three women to  drive from England to India and back (a journey of over 16,000 miles and certainly not your average adventure for a group of women back then). 

They also completed a 300 mile trek into Zanskar, a remote Buddhist Kingdom in Tibet (making themselves the first ever white women to do so).  

Antonia Deacock passed away in Sydney on March 25th.

Here is an excerpt from an interview The Telegraph did with the three women back in April 2008, titled 'The housewife explorers who climbed the Himalayas' it gives you an idea of how unprepared, fearless and adventurous they were. (I love them already)!

They were the first European women to venture into Zanskar, where foreigners were forbidden to travel for political reasons. Probably the first European women to cross Afghanistan unescorted, they even climbed a virgin peak and named it Biri Giri (Wives' Peak). Yet the trip was the antithesis of professional exploration today. The women packed plimsolls, umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, and skipping ropes to maintain fitness. They dressed in their husband's long johns, drank pints of Brooke Bond tea (Eve, by mistake ordered enough 'to keep' a family going for 150 years'), and insisted their two Ladakhi guides have jam as part of a proper balanced diet. Morevoer, at the planning stage, neither Sims nor Deacock could drive. (Both passed their tests just before departure). 

Read the full interview here

Antonia Deacock along with her husband Warwick set up the world's first dedicated adventure travel company Ausventure, as well as writing a book on her incredible adventure, titled No purdah in Padam.

Sounds like she had an interesting and bold spirit and a life well lived, good on her.

Books about some other intrepid travelers are;

A rage to live: A biography of Richard and Isabel Burton

A scandalous Life: The biography of Jane Digby

Millie x