After 28 Years and 31,000 Miles, Karl Bushby Finally Walks Home

On Monday morning, crowds packed into Hull's Queen Victoria Square to welcome home a man most of them had only ever heard about. Karl Bushby, 57, crossed the Humber Bridge and walked into the city centre to cheers, then continued the final few miles to his mother Angela's front gate, where a reunion 28 years in the making was waiting.

"It's good to be home," he told reporters on the doorstep. "It feels surreal."

A promise made in 1998

Bushby set off from Punta Arenas in Chile on 1 November 1998, aged 29, with a modified golf trolley he called The Beast and two unbreakable rules: he would not use transport to advance, and he would not go home until he could arrive under his own power.

The Goliath Expedition, as he named it, was meant to take around 12 years. Instead it took 28, spanning some 31,000 miles across four continents and about 30 countries. Along the way he picked his way through the jungles of the Darién Gap, crossed the frozen Bering Strait, and swam both the Caspian Sea and, in the final chapter of the journey, the English Channel.

It took the whole world

The route was never only physical. Visa bans, lost sponsorships and long forced pauses tested him as much as any desert or ice floe, and he has often credited the kindness of strangers for keeping him moving.

"They say it takes a village, but it took the whole world to get me here," he told the crowd in Hull, where the Lord Mayor and a message from the Prime Minister were among the tributes.

Hanging up his boots

His mother, who had waited at the family home as they agreed years ago, greeted him with a gentle "Where have you been?" before telling well-wishers she simply felt relieved.

Asked what comes next, Bushby was clear about at least one thing: "I'm hanging my boots up." After nearly three decades on the road, he has earned the rest, and a city has rarely been prouder to open its arms.