Lifestyle

British Adventurer Karl Bushby Returns Home After 28‑Year, 50,000‑km Foot Journey

By AFP

British adventurer Karl Bushby returned to his family in Hull on Monday after completing a 28‑year, 50,000‑kilometre trek that began in Chile in 1998. The 57‑year‑old former paratrooper, who walked across four continents, was welcomed in the street outside his mother’s house in the northeastern UK port of Hull by a crowd of about 1,000 people. Bushby explained that he had set two rules for the journey: to avoid all forms of transport and not to return until the challenge was finished. He thanked everyone who had supported him, saying, “I didn’t do this alone. It was a global effort. You wouldn’t believe just how many people have been involved in this, to get us around the kinds of obstacles that we face. We’ve faced down governments, we’ve faced down some of the hardest challenges.” The route back to Hull included walking the length of the Americas, crossing the frozen Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia, and traveling through parts of Central Asia and Europe, covering jungles, mountains and deserts. Earlier, he was applauded for crossing the iconic Humber Bridge near Hull in thick mist before his final push into the city centre and onto his mother’s home.