One of the world’s greatest adventurers, Steve Backshall, returned to Monmouth to give an insight into his world-wide exploits in some of the most remote parts of the planet.

The first time he was here, was as a boy scout, doing his Duke of Edinburgh Award in a canoe down the River Wye!

"This part of the world is quite dear to me, I did my first ever expedition as a scout, paddling down the Wye in a frozen February, going through Symonds Yat having to break the ice on the water before we got into our Kayaks!

"It’s quite a miracle I carried on doing expedition after that!"

It was not his childhood dream to become an explorer though, he wanted to be a safari park guide. Although he was always fascinated by the great explorers such as Cárdenas and Amelia Earheart and being devastated that would never "be my reality" as no-one would ever be able to walk out and see the Grand Canyon for the first time.

But it turned out he was wrong as there "are still dark un-explored parts of our planet that are utterly spectacular and where no human being has ever stood before, even now in 2018, 2019".

His latest TV series, ’Expedition’ has taken him to some of the most unknown places on earth and into uncharted territory encountering some extraordinary wildlife.

The series took him to the Yukatan Peninsular where he explored six hours into a lattice work of cave systems, some now underwater, and would come across the bones of a sabre tooth cat, the skull of a mammoth, or murals on cave walls: "Just to think someone walked six hours into these caves 1,000s of years ago to draw a jaguar is incredible," he said.

Last spring he was at the Arctic where normally the ice was present all year round; "In 2017, this ice was, for the first time ever, starting to melt; the entire area should be full of ice." He added that the ice would normally reflect the sunshine, "but now the black spaces absorb the heat of the sun; The Arctic wildlife relies on conditions that have been the same for years, yet these changes have taken place in the space of one lifetime."

His visit to Suriname in South America led them to a river not even the locals knew about, and exploring it nearly cost him his life. The unknown cave systems of Borneo revealed cave paintings 40,000 years old.

When asked by a young audience member what would be his advice for a starter explorer he said "My first experience was as a scout on the River Wye, you are so lucky, join the scouts, it was massive for me when I was younger and I still use those scouting techniques even today!"