British adventurer Karl Bushby completes 28-year journey

ByKevin Shoesmith

East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Reporting fromHull

British adventurer Karl Bushby has completed his 31,000-mile (50,000 km) journey from South America to Hull in the UK, reuniting with his mother at the family home 28 years after setting off.

In November 1998, the former paratrooper, then aged 29, set off from Punta Arenas, Chile, to complete an unbroken path back home, without breaking two self-imposed rules: not to return to the UK until the end of the journey, and not to use transport to advance.

Earlier, crowds gathered in Hull's city centre to welcome Bushby, before he set off to complete the final few miles home to his mother Angela Bushby.

Reaching the front door, he said: “It’s good to be home. It feels surreal.“

Bushby's journey took him to four continents, with key moments including navigating through the dense jungles of the Darién Gap, crossing the frozen Bering Strait and, more recently, swimming the English Channel.

As they had agreed years earlier, Bushby's mother, Angela, waited for him at her home in Sutton Park, where she raised him.

He appeared almost lost for words..

He said: “It feels surreal. It’s the end of a 28-year journey.”

His mother, who had not seen him for a decade, said: “It’s good to have him home.”

As he approached the house, he said: “This is familiar.”

But he admitted he never expected such a homecoming.

Addressing the crowd in the city centre, Bushby, when he was received by the lord mayor, Maria Coward, said: “There has never been a welcome home like this, I am sure. It's madness. An enormous thank you."

He added: "The biggest team - Earth - got me back here.”

On Sunday, when he crossed the Humber Bridge into East Yorkshire, he was met by his 36-year-old son Adam, his 12-year-old granddaughter whom he had never met, his father and brothers.

“It was amazing,” Bushby said of the reunion.

After returning to the UK, Bushby said he expected to struggle in the coming days and weeks as he readjusted to normal life.

"Everything that I am and everything that I know of me is going to go away," he said. "And that's going to be a problem. You're going to have the old identity crisis, because Karl is this [an adventurer] and has been for half his life.

"I think the old adage goes... the only thing worse than a man who can't fulfil his dreams is a man who's fulfilled his dreams... because then what?"

Bushby previously said he had always had a "wanderlust", and his opportunity to embark on this journey came following the end of his marriage, with his wife returning to Northern Ireland with their son.

Bushby said only about 15 of the 28 years were spent walking, with struggles obtaining visas, the 2007 global economic crash and Covid blamed for delays.

He often retreated to Mexico, where costs are low, between stints.

Under the rules he set for his journey, Bushby could not return to the UK to meet his family.

On rare occasions, he met his son and parents, who are divorced, in other countries.

Bushby said he set off as "penniless backpacker", often relying on handouts, or occasionally being forced to eat food discarded on roadsides.

He later secured sponsors and a book deal.

Nearing the end of the journey, he signed a deal with acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog, with the pair pictured together on Shakespeare Beach, near Dover, moments after the adventurer waded ashore in October.

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