What does it mean to be an explorer?

To seek knowledge! To go into unknown territory, not just going, but documenting what you find and seeking to explain its significance. This is what all the famous explorers of the past have done:

- Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) was a Portuguese explorer who led the first expedition that sailed around the Earth (1519-1522). Magellan named the Pacific Ocean (the name means that it is a calm, peaceful ocean).

- Captain James Cook (1728- 1779) was a British explorer and astronomer who went on many expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, Antarctic, Arctic, and around the world.

Cook's first journey was from 1768 to 1771, when he sailed to Tahiti in order to observe Venus as it passed between the Earth and the Sun (in order to try to determine the distance between the Earth and the Sun). During this expedition, he also mapped New Zealand and eastern Australia.

Just under one hundred years later, Robert O'Hara Burke (1820-1861) and William John Wills (1834-1861), set off from Melbourne to find a way of crossing the Australian continent from the south to the north.

These explorers went into what was (for people not from these areas) unknon territory. They discovered new knowledge and shared it with others. We think of unknown territory being land or sea or outer-space. We can think of it in other ways as well – artists, musicians and poets explore their imagination and share their insights with us.

There are also everyday kinds of explorations that we all make: turning on the TV, or radio, or opening up the internet to find out what is happening in the wider world, to find out the latest news. In fact, the word news is an acronym for direction and location, for North East West South.

In today’s highly inter-connected and inter-dependent world we tend to take for granted that our search for most of the knowledge that we want can be satisfied without making any serious sacrifices or taking any great personal risks to our health or safety.

But this is not necessarily so. People who love to experience a sense of the adventure of life, know that they have to move out of their comfort zone and in so doing make sacrifices and take risks. Why do people do this? There are many reasons, but one of the best is that when you become an explorer you become enchanted by learning – you discover a love of finding new knowledge and sharing this precious information with other people.