"I couldn't believe we could get within 12 miles of the Pole - someone was definitely on a line to God," he told a press conference.

I was just the monkey in the basket - all I had to do was pull a few ropes

David Hempleman-Adams

Mr Hempleman-Adams is the first person to have made the 1531-mile journey in an open basket balloon.

He landed back in Norway early on Saturday morning, after 132 gruelling hours in the air.

Brushes with death

The explorer said the trip was fraught with problems as soon as it got under way. The moment the balloon took off from Spitsbergen in Norway, all his communications equipment failed.

"I thought the trip was over right from the start because it's a hostile environment up there and I thought if I don't get down, this is going to end in tears."

He said he managed to contact Stockholm by radio and was put through to his team.

Sleep deprivation during the trip twice brought him close to death, he said.

The team's suggestion for a more gentle hobby

At one point he awoke to find his legs over the side of the basket - and was only saved by his safety harness.

Another time he fell asleep without having put the balloon on auto-pilot and fell thousands of feet before waking up.

Even when he was in sight of the landing site on the return journey, he ran into difficulties - the balloon was dragged along the pack ice and dipped into the freezing water before it came to a stop safely.

He told the BBC the landing was a "horrendous experience" which would have put him off making the journey altogether.

'Monkey in the basket'

Mr Hempleman-Adams praised his support team on the ground for the wealth of meteorological and navigation information they provided.

"I was just the monkey in the basket - all I had to do was pull a few ropes to get it to a certain level. But the experience and the expertise was behind (me)," he said.

He said his "genius of a weatherman" was the major difference between his trip and that of Swede Saloman Andree who died during an 1897 attempt to make the voyage.

Mr Andree died after eating infected polar bear meat when his balloon came down in the Arctic.

Mr Hempleman-Adams - a veteran of both poles and the highest peak in each continent - said he was looking forward to spending time with his family and having a good night's sleep.