When The Wild Geese left Ireland in 1691, although faced with an uncertain fate, they seized this tragedy and transformed it into opportunity.

They were intrepid. And their journeys brought them into contact with many new and wonderful sights.

It may feel like the world is shrinking, like there are no more frontiers to be seen for the first time. But Men of Action prove this thought wrong.

A Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist, Bertrand Piccard completed the first intercontinental solar flight. He travelled 1,550 miles from Madrid, Spain to Rabat, Morocco. The voyage took 19 hours and offered Bertand some breathtaking sights. Shortly after taking off from Madrid, he described:

‘For one hour I had the full moon on my right and I had the sunrise on my left and that was absolutely gorgeous. I had all the colours of the rainbow in the sky and also on the ground’

Bertrand crossed flew over Spain, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa, which he says was ‘a magical moment and represents one of the highlights of my career as an aeronaut’.

Bertrand is no stranger to aerial adventures. In 1999 he piloted the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight.

But it’s not just the promise of breathtaking sights that prompted Bertrand to complete this latest flight. Like The Wild Geese, he had an important cause that drove him over one thousand miles.

‘The question is not to use solar power for normal airplanes. The question is more to demonstrate that we can achieve incredible goals, almost impossible goals with new technologies’

Bertrand’s landing in Morocco coincides with the launch of construction of the largest ever solar terminal, which is being built in Morocco’s souther Ouarzazate region and will help to show that there are in fact new frontiers to be explored.