Benedict Allen is best know for:
• A 600 mile crossing of the remote NE Amazon by foot and dugout canoe aged 23 – during which he was forced to eat his dog to survive.
• The first recorded crossing of the Central Mountain Range of PNG, then continuing by canoe to Australia - during which he and his Papuan companions were shipwrecked and survived by eating limpets.
• Being the only Outsider to have gone through a ceremony to make him into a “man as strong as crocodile" – arguably the harshest male initiation ceremony in the world. (He was beaten four times a days for six weeks, and his back and chest permanently scarred with “crocodile” skin patterns).
• The only known crossing of the Amazon Basin at its widest point – a 3,600 mile journey of seven and half months, after training from the Matses Indians. During this he was shot at by hit men from Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel, and later robbed by guides and left to die.
• Making "first contact" with two threatened communities - the Yaifo and Obini - before gold miners and missionaries moved in.
• Becoming the first TV adventurer - when he pioneered the use of a hand-held video camera on expeditions, this for the first time allowing viewers to witness genuine adventures unfolding as they really happened. His approach has since been widely imitated, adapted and adopted, although almost always accompanied by camera crews or health-and-safety restrictions.
• Being the first known to walk the 1000 mile Namib Desert (“Skeleton Coast”) of Namibia – something he did with three reluctant camels.
• A 1000 mile lone crossing of the Gobi Desert, a six weeks trek that was probably the longest ever solo traverse on foot.
• Writing and presenting the first major TV series on indigenous healers around the world - the BBC series Last of the Medicine Men.
• A thousand mile trek with dogs through Siberia (Russian Far East) in the “worst winter in living memory” as preparation for an attempt to cross the Bering Strait alone with his dogteam. He got half way, before retreating after having lost his sledge and dogs in a blizzard team and almost died.
• Sewing his chest wound up with his boot mending kit, and without anesthetic - after having been abandoned by guides in the Sumatran forests
• Lasting more than 3 minutes in a tent of CS (“Tear”) gas – three times longer than the toughest of the “Unbreakables” - while presenting the Channel Five TV series