I’ve boldly gone and now I’m boldly going back: Adventurer on why he can’t stay home
TV explorer reveals how his wanderlust is Scots-made
He
has boldly gone to some of the remotest, most inhospitable locations, facing death and disaster in the most far-flung corners of the globe. But now TV adventurer Benedict Allen has revealed how his worldwide globe-trotting all started in the north east of Scotland. And how he’s having to battle his wanderlust desires to fulfil his most important job – being dad to his three young children. Benedict, 58, has made six series for the BBC including Skeleton Coast, Edge of Blue Heaven and Last of the Medicine Men. The passion for exploration, though, was forged when he arrived to study ecology at Aberdeen University. “That was where I decided I was definitely going to be an explorer,” said Benedict. “Scotland was my testing ground for the world, my launch pad. “I got really serious about it and ran endlessly on the beaches there to get myself fit. “I thought I’d maybe have one chance of an expedition and I’d have to get in shape. “I dreamed of where I wanted to go and had maps of the Amazon all over the walls of my little digs in Aberdeen and even had leaves on the floor. It sounds crazy but I thought it made it look more like a jungle so I could get it absolutely clear in my head that this is what I was going to do.” Having scrimped together enough money to fund a trip, Benedict set off for the Amazon at the tender age of 22. That first expedition, 600 miles through the densest forest from the Orinoco delta to the Amazon delta, was almost his last. “I almost died several times, I got two kinds of malaria and I was chased by drunken gold miners with knives,” said Benedict. “I jumped in my canoe to get away but it capsized. I lost everything down the river and I had to walk out of the forest. It took three weeks, struggling every day. “I had adopted a dog which had an infection and it became my companion. It got so bad that I didn’t think I was going to get out, not going to see my mum and dad again, and had to eat it. It was a terrible thing to have to do.” Rather than putting him off, the expedition drove Benedict on to go back on other adventures and try to understand why he so nearly died. He’s been on so many expeditions he’s lost count. “I’m not sure, 15, maybe 20,” he said. The Amazonian escape was just one of many near-death experiences, including being shot at
by henchmen of on-the-run drugs boss Pablo Escobar. He also lost his dogs in a blizzard in the Russian Arctic and was left with no supplies and no way of getting to safety. He managed to find them after a sleepless night when he feared he’d perish. “I stopped because I was taking too many risks and knew sooner or later it was going to go wrong. Too many things had scared me and I settled down.” Benedict and wife Lenka had three children, Natalia, 10, Freddie, eight, and Beatrice, two. But a decade of peaceful domesticity ended when Benedict was asked to take a BBC security correspondent on a trip to Papua New Guinea to see birds of paradise. “Making that series for the BBC started the whole thing again,” said Benedict. “It opened this box that had been carefully sealed, the adventurous life I’d put aside. “It wasn’t so much that I had wanderlust again but more that I felt I had all these skills that weren’t being used. I knew all about rainforests and indigenous peoples and was doing nothing with that knowledge,” said Benedict. “But the children are my worry now. I think about it a lot, how I want to get back to be there for them and read bedtime stories. “The irony is that doing that can be quite dangerous as you’re not focusing on what you’re doing. I’m trying to do fewer and shorter trips and cut down the risks.” A trip that made global headlines last year when it was reported that was lost, feared dead, in Papua New Guinea is just one he’ll be discussing on a forthcoming UK tour. “It was trying to find a tribe who had helped me to safety as a young man but hadn’t been seen in over 30 years,” added Benedict. “It wasn’t a stunt and I wasn’t lost – it’s my job to know where I am – it was just that I got malaria and dengue fever and needed to be extracted.” Benedict Allen: Ultimate Explorer will be at Stirling on October 7 followed by dates in St Andrews and Berwick.
I got two kinds of malaria, was chased by drunken gold miners with knives, jumped in my canoe to get away but it capsized, lost everything down the river, took three weeks to walk out of the forest, ...then I had to eat my dog – Benedict Allen’s near misses