Extraordinary adventurer Karl Bushby has spent 28 years walking home to Hull from the tip of South America but, with just a few miles to go, he has admitted getting used to the journey being over will be “difficult”. As he prepares to complete his quest on Monday, it seems he may not be ready for his incredible challenge to come to a close.
Pushing a trolley laden with camping equipment along a busy country road in Lincolnshire, around 30 miles from the finish line, Karl appeared uncertain about the future and was grappling with something of an identity crisis.
“My purpose and reason for living is about to end,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult … trying to blend back into a society that you just don’t know anymore.”
Karl, 57, was just short of 30 years old when he set off from the southernmost tip of South America on November 1, 1998 having left Hull the previous month. In the years since, he has covered 31,000 miles across four continents, traversed shifting ice over the Bering Strait, and swam – a generous description of his technique – across both the Caspian Sea and the English Channel.
Before he set off on his journey 28 years ago, he told the Hull Daily Mail he was “terrified” of what he was getting himself into but said he was “mentally and physically as ready as I will ever be”. He added: “There is no way I can know who I will be when I come back.”
Along the way, Karl has battled virtually every conceivable terrain and weather condition across 30 countries to return to where it all began half a lifetime ago.
Dense jungle, blistering desert and frozen tundra all slowed his progress, but mountains of bureaucratic red tape helped transform what was intended to be a 12-year journey into the epic undertaking he has named the “Goliath Expedition.”
It has taken Karl nearly three times as long to return to his mother, Angela, in Hull, as it took the hero of The Odyssey to make it back to his wife, Penelope, in Ithaca. “Odysseus was a bit of an amateur,” Karl quipped. “But, you know, I’ll cut him some slack – I haven’t met any giant Cyclops.”
The real world threw up plenty of dangers of its own – a tense standoff with a polar bear, navigating crocodile-infested waters to skirt around a guerrilla conflict in Colombia, a mob attack in Peru, and a dramatic helicopter rescue from a drifting ice floe out to sea.
The former paratrooper’s extraordinary quest was ignited by a birthday card from his father, Keith, in the mid-90s. Keith, himself an Army veteran, recalled a debate among special forces soldiers about the feasibility of walking from London to New York via the Bering land bridge.
Karl traced a continuous line across a map, spanning Europe and Asia to North America, and rather than stopping at New York, continued all the way down to the southern tip of Chile.
“And that was it,” he said. “With that under my skin, there was no going back.”
Karl set himself two unwavering rules for his epic journey: no transportation could be used to move forwards, and he was required to make the entire trip on foot. He set off with $500 and quickly encountered hurricane-force winds on the Patagonian Steppe.
He narrowly avoided conflict in the perilous Darién Gap – the trackless, unforgiving stretch of jungle, rainforest and mountains separating South and Central America – in 2001, before being imprisoned for 18 days after straying into a restricted border zone in Panama.
Following an airlift to safety during the 56-mile Bering Strait crossing in 2006 alongside American adventurer Dimitry Kieffer, he suffered a near-fatal plunge into icy waters and the pair came close to losing all their equipment. Having completed the remarkable crossing, they were arrested and threatened with deportation for entering Russia without authorisation.
Visa complications and weather conditions that permitted travel for only a few months each year meant it took the best part of a decade to traverse Russia. When Russia refused him a visa in 2012, Karl embarked on a protest march from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington DC, which ultimately secured him the necessary documentation.
Following each setback, he would retreat to the US or Mexico, where the cost of living was considerably lower, and bide his time until he could resume his journey from where he had left off. Police tracked his movements throughout China, a lengthy pandemic-related setback hampered his progress, and geopolitical tensions forced him to spend 31 days swimming across the Caspian Sea after routes through Russia and Iran were closed off.
By no means an experienced swimmer, Karl relied on a flotation vest and wetsuit as he made his way backwards through the water by flapping his arms in a technique he calls “floatimming,” a hybrid of floating and swimming. Europe brought its own set of obstacles, with 90-day visit restrictions compelling him to journey in three-month stints.
Karl has a son who has largely grown up without him and is now in his mid-30s. His father greeted him on the beach in Dover when he crossed the Channel – but he hasn’t seen his mother in a decade.
Throughout the journey, a revolving door of sponsors has provided support, though many fell away as the expedition dragged on and finances took a hit during the 2008 financial crisis. For some time, he has been backed by a production company founded by House Of Cards creator Beau Willimon and music producer Jordan Tappis, who are working on a documentary with legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog.
It has been the generosity of countless strangers, however, that has sustained and driven him forward throughout his journey, particularly from those with the least to give. Karl has been welcomed into makeshift shelters built from salvaged car parts, nursed back to health after a bad stomach infection by a Peruvian doctor’s family, and treated to countless simple meals of rice and water by people who expected nothing in return.
“I’ve been welcomed in by the poorest of the poor,” he said. “I’ve met 99.9999 per cent of the very best of humanity. Every culture, every country has been the same response.”
There have been seemingly endless periods of solitude that have made his final stretch feel almost dreamlike as news spreads of his approach through the rolling green fields leading to his beloved Yorkshire. Heavy lorries thundering past him on the road near Market Rasen sounded their horns, drivers offered enthusiastic waves, and a group of motorcyclists pulled over to snap selfies.
Howard Denton stopped his car and was baffled that a pair of cyclists he had briefly chatted with had failed to recognise their remarkable fellow traveller.
“I said to them, ‘Did you see that bloke who’s walked around the world?'” Mr Denton said. “They said, ‘No.’ They didn’t think of asking him where he was going. I just couldn’t believe how stupid they were. I think he’s incredible. I think he’s amazing.”
While he may be uncertain about what the future holds, one thing is definite – he won’t be pining for the thousands of steps he’s taken daily. “I’m not doing it because I like walking,” he said. “It’s a means of getting somewhere.”
Karl is set to be back in Hull on Monday, November 2. He is due to arrive in Queen Victoria Square at 11am with well-wishers invited to gather there from 10am.
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