Amputee Lee Spencer's Atlantic rowing triumph is the latest in our long history ...

spencerAmputee Atlantic rower Lee Spencer (Image: Anthony Upton/ Rowing Marine via Getty Images)

WHEN asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest the great explorer George Mallory famously replied: "Because it's there." The mountaineer was to die in his attempt to conquer the peak in 1924, aged 37, with the mystery of whether he made it to the top still tantalisingly unresolved. Yet his famous retort has become the embodiment of the great British spirit of adventure - a desire to go in search of new frontiers and attempt the seemingly impossible. It has become fashionable to think of our nation as inward looking. But, in the past weeks alone, there has been plenty of proof that many brave Britons are still pushing the boundaries around the world.

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Former Royal Marine Lee Spencer, for example, has just completed the fastest unsupported solo row across the Atlantic.

The 49-year-old, who lost his right leg in 2014, travelled 3,500 miles, battling 40ft waves, to smash the previous record for an able-bodied crossing by 36 days.

Meanwhile, Charlie Condell, 18, has become the youngest to cycle solo 18,000 miles around the globe.

And just five months ago, Ross Edgley, 33, swam 2,000 miles around Britain's entire coastline in only 157 days, despite multiple jellyfish stings and a rotting tongue!

These triumphs echo a long history of intrepid adventure. Perhaps it's being an island nation that has always led us to seek out new horizons.

When Sir Francis Drake wasn't defeating the Spanish Armada, he was circumnavigating the globe in Golden Hind and finding new passages between oceans.

Meanwhile, his Tudor contemporary, Sir Walter Raleigh, was exploring the Americas.

Later, Captain James Cook, on HMS Endeavour, would chart New Zealand and eastern Australia. He was determined to roam "farther than any other man has been before me".

johnsonSolo pilot Amy Johnson in 1930 (Image: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

In the 20th century, Amy Johnson stunned the world when she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

And it would be a British expedition in 1953 that would achieve the first proven ascent of Everest.

The fearlessness of our adventuring legends has always been breathtaking and many have paid the ultimate price.

James Cook himself was killed by fierce locals in Hawaii. Sir John Franklin perished in 1847 while attempting to navigate the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic, while Percy Fawcett vanished in 1925 during his expedition to find the fabled "Lost City of Z" in the jungles of Brazil.

Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to climb Everest unaided and without extra oxygen in 1995, but tragically died descending from

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