John Donald Hillaby (24 July 1917 – 19 October 1996) was a British travel writer and explorer.
[4][5] The Hillaby family came from Pontefract, West Yorkshire, where since 1850 they had been prominent manufacturers of liquorice, producing, amongst other things, Pontefract cakes and allsorts; in 1978 Hillaby noted "alas, we've had nothing to do with the profits for over half a century", attributing the business's eventual failure to his grandfather's taste for "slow horses and fast women", acting as "a rather goatish old man about town" who spent much of his time at "the bars on Tanshelf race course".
[6][7][8][9] Hillaby embarked on a career in journalism, interrupted by service in the Second World War.
His real impact on the literary scene came in 1964, when he published Journey to the Jade Sea, an account of his 1,000-mile walk with a camel train through northern Kenya to Lake Turkana.
His earlier journeys were always alone, but after he married Kathleen Burton (also a great walker) in 1981 the two travelled together.