Karl Bushby is back in UK
Bushby set out from Punta Arenas, Chile, on Nov 1, 1998, and has walked 50,000 kilometres across four continents and 30 countries to get home. He dodged war in the dangerous Darien Gap, the roadless and rugged jungle, rainforest and mountains between South and Central America in 2001, and was then jailed for 18 days after crossing a restricted border zone in Panama. After being airlifted to safety during the 90-km Bering Strait crossing in 2006 with American adventurer Dimitry Kieffer, they started again and faced a standoff with a polar bear, survived near-death plunges into freezing waters and almost lost all their supplies when their sleds plunged in the sea.
He navigated shifting ice over the Bering Strait and swam across the Caspian Sea and English Channel to avoid taking a boat or plane – or any transport – to propel him forward. After managing the rare crossing, the pair were jailed and faced deportation for entering Russia illegally.
He was expected to meet his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time.
“It’s been a week of lasts,” Bushby told the crowd. Bushby planned to meet with family, including his son, Adam, whom he has only seen a few times over the journey. Then he was off to push his two-wheeled cart the final steps across Hull and reunite with his mother, Angela, whom he hadn’t seen in a decade.
When Russia denied him a visa in 2012, Bushby walked in protest from Los Angeles to the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, which eventually led to him getting the proper paperwork. Because of visa struggles and weather that allowed travel only a few months a year, it took Bushby almost 10 years to make his way through Russia in fits and starts.