F a m o u s e x p l o r e r s b y M a r i j a n a M i l j i ć.

Famous explorers

by Marijana Miljić

Dr David Livingstone, the British explorer, discovered a waterfall on the River Zambezi in Africa in 1855 and named it Victoria Falls after the British queen, Victoria. Victoria Falls are one of the wonders of the world.

Roald Amundsen and his crew reached Antarctica in 1911, one month before Captain Scott and his expedition got there. Scott and all his men died on the way home.

In 1953, Edmund Hillary was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. He climbed to the top with a Nepalese man, Tenzing Norgay.

In 1961, the Russian pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to

orbit the Earth.

Jacques Cousteau was the French explorer, inventor, photographer, and filmmaker. He found new ways to explore the world‘s oceans. His scuba breathing apparatus allows divers to breathe underwater.

'

Rain, wind, snow, the cold the weather is every explorer’ s worst enemy. In the North Pole, when an icy wind blows, you have to be careful. Already low temperatures become even lower. Your fingers can stick to anything you touch.

Your hot drink freezes before you finish it and batteries won’ t work. And yet Robert Swan decided to spend over two months in such conditions. His plan was to spend 66 days in the Artic walking 965 kilometres.

In March 1989, the eight-man team set off on their Icewalk expedition across the frozen Arctic Ocean to reach the North Pole. At the start of their journey, they only managed a few kilometres a day, but later, they walked for up to thirty kilometres each day. As they went, they made a series of educations films because Swan wanted to draw people’ s attention to the effects of climate change on the Arctic.

The whole expedition was like a military operation and 500 people had spend over a thousand days planning and preparing for the journey. They had had to find money, maps , special equipment and special clothing to protect the Icewalk team from the cold. It was very important to have clothes consisting of several layers and special material to keep the skin dry.

The team was truly international. Two British men, an Australian, a German, a Japanese man, a Canadian and a Russian had to overcome a combination of language and cultural problems that were the result of them all coming from different parts of the world. However, they had one thing in common. All the men on the Icewalk expedition were very experienced explorers and scientists. For example, in 1986, Robert Swan, the leader of the expedition, had walked over 1,400 kilometres to the South Pole in extremely cold temperatures.

The team arrived at their destination on 14th May 1989 - their journey was a success despite the difficulties they had had during the Icewalk expedition. Most of them had suffered from frostbite during the trip, but fortunalety they hadn't had to go home early.

They had also nearly drowned because of the melting of the Arctic ice - a result of global climate change. With the completion of the expedition, Swan became the first man to walk to both the North and South Poles. However, he wasn’t content to celebrate for long. He was already planning his next adventure.