Angus McDonald was a photographer, writer, author and adventurer best known for, in 1994, completing an epic journey across China to Yangon in the footsteps of George Ernest Morrison, known as Morrison of Peking, the 19th-century Australian adventurer.
McDonald completed a Bachelor of Arts in history at the University of Sydney and became an advocate for Tibetan autonomy, developing close relations with the Tibetan community. He later settled in Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan community in India.
In 1991, McDonald was awarded one of the first scholarships for Australians to study in Asia. He spent a year at the Indian Film Institute at Pune, researching early Bollywood filmmakers and publishing a monograph on the Indian writer and director, K. A. Abbas. He was awarded his master's degree by the University of Sydney the following year.
Invited by the Film Institute's leader, Dr Kulkarni, to be the photographer, McDonald joined the Pune civil expedition to climb Mount Everest. It ended in tragedy when Kulkarni and another member of the team perished in a blizzard.
Following publication of The Five Foot Road, McDonald decided to pursue his chosen career as photojournalist in Asia. (Zubrzycki, John, The Sydney Morning Herald: 23 March 2013 p. 13)
