HULL, England — Karl Bushby embraced his weeping mother in his arms Monday as he returned to his northern England home to complete a 28-year odyssey to walk around the world.
“Where have you been?” his mother, Angela, asked as he arrived outside the home he left in 1998 that was now decked with a banner saying “Welcome Home Son.”
He didn’t need to tell her.
Bushby set out from Punta Arenas, Chile, on Nov. 1, 1998, and walked 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) across four continents and 30 countries to get home. 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.
He vowed not to return until he could complete the journey on foot. It was an eye-opening adventure full of danger and drudgery that was interrupted for years at a time by the unexpected: the 2008 financial crash that sapped funding from sponsors, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and mountains of bureaucratic red tape to get across international borders.
A trek made possible by kind strangers
On the final day of the journey, Bushby pushed his cart toward a hero’s welcome at City Hall before setting off for the last stretch to see his mother.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he joked to the crowd of hundreds who cheered his arrival. “Is that it, is it done?”
The ex-paratrooper said he looked like he was 10 years old when he left his mother's rowhouse at the age of 29. He returned as a 57-year-old — softer, grayer and weathered, but far more worldly.
“They say it takes a village but literally it took a world to get me here,” Bushby said. “The kindness of strangers, so many, from individuals to nation states to get me back here today. I didn’t do this alone. There was a big team. The biggest team. Earth.”
The idea started with a birthday card from his dad
Bushby had a thirst for adventure, but his mission only came into focus when his father, Keith, sent him a birthday card in the mid-90s. His dad, an army veteran himself, mentioned an argument two special forces troops had about the possibility of walking from London to New York over the Bering land bridge, believed by some scientists to have been used by early humans to migrate from Asia to the Americas at a time of lower sea levels.
Perilous jungles, scorching deserts and frozen tundra slowed him down, but bureaucratic holdups brought his adventure to a halt for long periods.
Bushby originally calculated the distance could be covered in about five years, but he knew that was unrealistic.
“You just dump a whole bucket full of reality on that,” he said. “We suspected that it was 12 years plus. And the plus was a big plus. But never in our wildest dreams would we ever have imagined 28 years.”
Danger on land and sea followed by border problems
He dodged war in the dangerous Darién 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 56-mile (90-kilometer) 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. After managing the rare crossing, the pair were jailed and faced deportation for entering Russia illegally.
It took Bushby almost 10 years to make his way through Russia in fits and starts because of visa struggles and weather that only allowed travel a few months a year. When Russia denied him a visa in 2012, Bushby walked in protest from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., which eventually led to him getting the proper paperwork.
Family firsts and a long-awaited reunion
Bushby has met several times over the decades with family members who have met up with him on his journey. He was greeted on the beach in Dover by his father and brothers after crossing the channel last month.
He reunited with Adam, his 36-year-old son from an early marriage whom he had rarely seen, and he met his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time.
Bushby hadn't seen his mother in a decade, setting the stage for an emotional and somewhat awkward reunion captured amid a throng of cameras and a documentary film crew.
“Behave yourself, mother,” he joked, as his mother wept and he held her and rubbed her back. “Get yourself together.”
In the final days of his trip, Bushby spoke of his anxiety over the trip ending, living in his mom's basement and not knowing what he would do.
“It’s like stepping across the event horizon into a black hole,” he told The Associated Press. “I have no idea what’s about to happen in my life.”
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Melley reported from London.
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