With his usual good humour, extreme explorer Benedict Allen tells the true story of his remarkable life, culminating in his last dramatic expedition to the remotest corner of PNG - when he was thought lost, and became the subject of frenzied news headlines.

Dubbed by the Daily Telegraph ‘one of Britain’s two great living explorers,’ Benedict Allen is well known from his six BBC TV series and eleven books – but also his pioneering technique. His approach has been not to take conventional backup, GPS or satellite phone but to immerse himself among remote people and learn skills from them - before embarking on a testing solo journey. He underwent a severe 6-week initiation ceremony to better understand a remote forest people of New Guinea and crossed the whole of the Amazon Basin after training from the  Matses Indians. Similarly, he made the first recorded journey up the length of the “Skeleton Coast”  of Namibia and in Mongolia undertook a six-week lone crossing of the Gobi with his camels. More recently he trekked a 1000 km  through the Arctic with dogs in the worst winter in living memory. He is said to have almost died nine times and arguably has lived longer alone in hostile and isolated environments than anyone alive.

Find out more about Benedict from his website.

Note that this is a change to our published programme. John Beatty will return in a future season. This is a members only talk, with pre-booking - see the recent newsletter email for details.

Heading down an Amazon tributary

Forest Skills

Skeleton Coast, Namibia

Don't try this at home!

Preparing to cross the Gobi