Best Australian explorer?

[DaveR]

How about Bass, who with a mate, took a row boat (an over sized one) out of Port Jackson, and then set of south to find Port Philip Bay.....

[GeoffA]

Hume and Hovell....

Blaxland, Lawson & Wentworth......Sydney would be pretty crowded without them.....

Eyre....

Strzlecki....

There were a few of 'em...

[Snow]

Mrs Snow's great great great Uncle Giles. Ernest Giles that is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Giles

[PB]

A comprehensive list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_exploration_of_Australia

Stuart is my pick

[Lloyd65]

The Gold Miners

[doc evil]

missing so far, Madigan, Canning, Lindsay, Warburton to name a few.

They were all pioneers who opened up this great country.........for us to follow in their footsteps.

[GeoffA]

So, who's it gunna be, Carlisle...?

[austastar]

Hi,
   Gregory!


W.A. boy, surveyor, reached Lake Gregory from the north searching for the inland sea.
Got back to the coast to find the crew had lost the boats, set off from NW W.A. across NT to Qld, down to Cairns on foot and didn't lose a man.


He gets my vote.


cheers

[speewa158]

Mrs Snow's great great great Uncle Giles. Ernest Giles that is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Giles

Snow l have seen his name scratched on Chambers Pillar , Most impressive to know a relative of  . l will shake her hand with pride 

[SteveandViv]

Burke and Wills are pretty famous, but not too clever.   
Cook is still, erroneously, considered to have discovered Australia about 164 years after Janszoon. 

Who is the country's greatest explorer?

Issue 14 of 4WD Touring Australia features stories on Sturt and Burke and Wills, both desert explorers.

Carlisle

Gregory IMO, love reading about him.

[Carlisle Rogers]

Not Burke and Wills!

Otherwise, impossible to say. It's so subjective. What does 'best' mean really? Most ground covered? Most accurate maps? Actually found anything worth finding (that knocks a few off the list)? Didn't completely exaggerate what they did find to coincide with the hypothesis of whoever was funding the expedition in the first place?
Some explorers were (and perhaps still are) derided for 'sympathetic' views of the aboriginals, i.e. the belief that they were human, not beast. I like Francois Peron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_P%C3%A9ron), who invented anthropology and collected over 100,000 natural history specimens from Australia. No other explorer or scientist to date has accomplished anything near that.
He examined the Tasmanian aboriginal people with an academic eye. Thirty years later, none existed. Charles Darwin visited in 1836 and was baffled at how quickly the empire had destroyed the population of an island as big as Ireland.
It's easy to assume that 100 years ago genocide was somehow OK, somehow excusable because of the zeitgeist, but when one man saw things otherwise, he deserves much, much more respect than the co-murderers and ostensible heroes like John Batman and Sir George Arthur.

But, like I said, it all depends entirely on your criteria. I just wanted to see what people thought! Intriguing that everyone has a personal favourite, all for seemingly completely different reasons.

Carlisle

So, who's it gunna be, Carlisle...?

[Redback]

You know I would probably guess or assume that none of these blokes would have got anywhere near where they wanted, without the help of the Aboriginal trackers/guides leading them in the direction they wanted to go

In the case of Hume and Hovell, it was Hovell that did most of the work, yet Hume got all the attention, Why??

Baz.

[Alan Loy]

I would vote for Cook.  His scientific investigations of Australia among many other places changed the European knowledge of the southern hemisphere and lead to the biggest changes in Australia in 40,000 years.

[4runner]

Has every one forgotten Alby Mangles?http://www.myswag.org/Smileys/classic/angry.gif That aside the Leyland Bro's first trip of discovery and the Doco they made and showed at schools. I remeber watching the film to this day.

[Redback]

I would vote for Cook.  His scientific investigations of Australia among many other places changed the European knowledge of the southern hemisphere and lead to the biggest changes in Australia in 40,000 years.

Not really a great Australian explorer, great English explorer maybe, he spent more time in New Zealand than here.

[Alan Loy]

OK explorer of Australia not Australian Explorer

In that case what about Sir Douglas Mawson as an Australian explorer

[SambOz]

Alfred William HOWITT , 1830 - 1908 was an adaptable and largely self educated sort of man who achieved a huge amount during his life.

Examples of this notable Australians life can be found in " Come wind, come weather " which most libraries will have. It is a great read and I recommend it !

And in the wiki reference the following summary-

"Howitt was born in Nottingham, England, the son of authors William Howitt and Mary Botham.[1] He came to the Victorian gold fields in 1852 with his father and brother to visit his uncle, Godfrey Howitt. Initially, Howitt was a geologist in Victoria; later, he worked as a gold warden in North Gippsland. Howitt went on to be appointed Police magistrate & Warden Crown Lands Commissioner; later still, he held the position of Secretary of the Mines Department.

In 1861, the Royal Society of Victoria appointed Howitt leader of the Victorian Relief Expedition, with the task of establishing the fate of the Burke and Wills expedition. Howitt was a skilled bushman; he took only the necessary equipment and a small crew on the journey to Cooper Creek. There, on 16 September he found sole survivor John King;[2] Howitt buried Burke and Wills before returning to Melbourne with King. On a follow-up expedition to Cooper Creek in 1862, Howitt recovered the bodies of Burke and Wills[2] for burial at the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Howitt collected botanical specimens during his expeditions in north-eastern South Australia, south-western Queensland and western New South Wales; his collections were sent to Baron von Mueller and are now in Melbourne.

Howitt researched the culture and society of Indigenous Australians, in particular kinship and marriage; he was influenced by the theories of evolution and anthropology. Howitt's major work (co-authored with Lorimer Fison) was "Kamilaroi and Kurnai" (1879), which was recognised internationally as a landmark in the development of the modern science of anthropology; this work was used by others, including the twentieth century anthropologist Norman Tindale "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_William_Howitt

[Mallory Black]

Matthew Flinders
he would have done a lot more if it wasn't for him being interned by the French for years and years

[FZJ]

My sister in law isnt the sharpest.She told us she was amazed how explorers like "Black and Decker" did what they did!

[DaveR]

Matthew Flinders

And if he would have done a lot more if it wasn't for him being interned by the French for years and years.

[fuji]

Tom Kruse! Not really an explorer but what a great man. If you have time read the book.

[speewa158]

On you Fuji  that is a top book . Makes us look silly compared to the 2weekly trip he did again & again 

[GeoffA]

Yep. A very interesting read.....

[xcvator]

Don't think Lasseter has been mentioned yet for his exploits 

[Raym]

For those who like their explorer history.

http://www.leichhardt.qm.qld.gov.au/