Jon Wheelahan tribute: Teen discovers Nimbin at Aquarius Festival

Jon Wheelahan passed away on August 31 at his home in Nimbin and is mourned by family and friends on the Northern Rivers and Melbourne.

A teenage boy’s journey from Melbourne to Nimbin for a famous festival instilled a love in him that lasted a lifetime.

Jon Wheelahan, 63, died on August 31 at his home in Nimbin from natural causes.

Speaking from Newport in the inner-west of Melbourne, his sister Joanne Wheelahan and his mother Joan Wheelahan said Jon was just 15 when he joined a group of people from Melbourne and travelled to Nimbin for the Aquarius Festival in 1973.

Adapted from the counter-culture festival Woodstock, the Aquarius Festival was a celebration of art, sustainability, harmony and freedom that drew thousands of young people to Nimbin.

Jon Wheelahan was 15 when he joined a group of people travelling from Melbourne to the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin in 1973.

Joan said her son shared his experience at the festival on his return to Melbourne.

“He said he was really amazing,” she said.

“He was very happy he had discovered something that, at 15, looked like a different world to him.”

She said her son was always a hippy at heart and believed in having a connection with nature and being good to people.

“That’s why he was such a sweet and kind man who was very philosophical who was always keen on having a good chat about the meaning of life,” she said.

Joanne said her brother was a very good athlete and Aussie rules football player as a schoolboy.

Jon Wheelahan (left) with his sister Joanne and a family member (back) at a family gathering in 2005.

After a period living in Alice Springs, Cairns and Cooktown, he moved to Nimbin in the late 1990s to live at a couple of multiple occupancy properties, including Lilyfield.

He also lived at his family’s Cecil St house in Nimbin for more than 15 years.

He had an interest in photography, writing, conservation of the environment, Hindu spiritualism, history and his cat Yuri.

Joanne said he had five children who he loved dearly: Jay (deceased), Sky, Daniel, Kiai (deceased) and Sophie, plus grandson Xavia.

“He famously said he had delivered three of them,” she said.

The well-known Nimbin man also has two older sisters, Trish and Joanne, and two nephews, Andrew and Aidan.

His mother Joan and her husband Arthur lived at the Cecil St house with him until 2015, when they moved to Melbourne.

The family will conduct a memorial service in Melbourne that will be streamed online at a future date.