He has eaten raw goat testicles, gobbled down frozen yak eyeballs and sipped on elephant faecal fluid.

So the first question Edward "Bear" Grylls was asked today during his visit to the scout headquarters in Darwin was hardly surprising.

"How can you eat bugs, exactly?" a young girl said.

The English adventurer, who is preparing to head out to Arnhem Land to shoot an episode for his Man vs Wild television series, put it down to the basics of survival.

"It's amazing what happens when you get hungry," he said.

"You have got to do whatever you can. And it's never pretty, is it?"

The 35-year-old, who is also the chief of the United Kingdom Scout Association, was then peppered with more questions.

"Can you really walk up a waterfall?," one scout asked.

"No," he told them.

"I can climb up a lot of waterfalls [but] I fall down a lot of waterfalls."

Another asked: "How do you come up with the things you do, like sleeping in a camel?"

"[I] thought that would be a cool thing to show how to do," Grylls replied, admitting it wasn't the best idea.

"It was a bad night," he said.

Another scout wanted to know: "Have you ever felt like you are about to die?"

"God, you guys are real doom-mongers today," Grylls said.

"Yes. It's a horrible feeling, but it makes you realise life is super special."

Grylls would not give much away about his plans in the Northern Territory outback, which he rated as one of the riskiest places in the world.

"Danger is the bottom line," he said.

"You've got some of the most lethal predators on earth up here, so I'm always cautious and a little bit nervous, especially when you are dealing with sharks, snakes and saltwater crocs."

But 12-year-old scout, Oliver, said he knew what Grylls should do while in the Top End.

"I think [he should] wrestle a croc, kill it, and then take its teeth and make a croc-tooth dagger to kill cane toads with, and sleep in the croc, and have the croc skull as protection.

"That would be cool."