Former UK paratrooper Karl Bushby ends 28-year trek across jungles and frozen sea

After 28 years, British adventurer Karl Bushby arrived back home on Monday after a 50,000-kilometre trek from Chile across four continents without using any transport to progress.

Bushby, who set off on his odyssey from South America in 1998, had two golden rules for his journey – avoid all forms of transport to advance and not return until he completed his challenge.

He was met Monday in the centre of Hull, northeast England, by a crowd of up to 1,000 cheering people, and thanked everyone for all the support he had met along the way.

"I didn't do this alone," he said, adding it was a "global effort" after winning praise from Hull Mayor Maria Coward.

"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."

Carrying a tent, a few hundred dollars and a cheap plastic camera, the route back to his home city has seen him walk the length of the Americas, across the frozen Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia and then through parts of Central Asia and Europe covering jungles, mountains, and deserts.

"Sometimes the monotony is incredible. You're in deserts and the landscape ​doesn't change for days to weeks. That can get a little mind-bending. The same with the Arctic," ​he told Reuters last year.

He had already been applauded Sunday as he crossed the iconic Humber Bridge near Hull in thick mist, ahead of his final push into the city centre and then on to his mother's home.

The 57-year-old former paratrooper, who pushed his belongings with him on a metal-framed cart, was met by a civic welcome Monday.

"So many people have followed Karl on his epic journey. We have all felt inspired by his spirit, tenacity and dogged determination," Coward said earlier, adding the city took "pride in his incredible achievement".

Bushby was to be reunited late Monday with his mother Angela, his 36-year-old son Adam and a 12-year-old granddaughter he has never met.

'UK soil'

He began his adventure when he was 29 after his marriage broke down and his wife returned to Northern Ireland with their son.

He originally expected to spend about 10 years on ​the road but he hadn't anticipated the obstacles he'd face, among them a brief imprisonment in Panama, being held at gunpoint in Mexico and detention by Russian ​authorities for crossing the border illegally.

He was forced to pause the journey several times, including when Moscow refused him a visa. The 2008 financial crisis and then the Covid-19 pandemic proved to be other hold-ups.

At those times, he stepped away from the journey, living notably at a base in Mexico, then once the situation had been resolved, he would resume from the exact spot where he had left off.

He swam across the English Channel in early October to reach the UK again. Bushby arrived back on UK soil in early October after swimming the Channel.

"Feels good to have UK soil under my feet after all these years," he said later in a statement, adding his journey "hadn't been easy".

"All of us can accomplish more than we will ever imagine," he added.

Legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog and a film crew are accompanying Bushby on his homecoming.

Herzog is making a feature-length documentary about the journey entitled "Walk of Life".

The production company behind the film has been supporting Bushby's progress for the past 16 years, providing financial and logistical assistance.

In an interview with AFP from northern France in September, Bushby voiced some apprehension about returning to a more normal life back in Britain.

"I've got to try and get established in the grown-up world again," he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)