Karl Bushby crosses the Humber Bridge and finishes his 28-year walk home from Chile today
British adventurer Karl Bushby crossed the Humber Bridge through thick mist on Sunday, on the final stage of a 31,000-mile (49,890 km) walk from the southern tip of South America to his home town of Hull that has taken 28 years. The former paratrooper is due to finish on Monday, when his mother, his son and his granddaughter will be waiting for him.
Bushby left Punta Arenas in Chile in 1998, aged 29, with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, and turned north for home. He set himself two rules: not to return to the UK until the journey was complete, and never to use transport to move forward. By the time he swam back across the English Channel on 5 October, the now 57-year-old had crossed four continents, a frozen sea, deserts, mountains and jungles, pushing a cart he calls "The Beast".
"[I'm] just absolutely overwhelmed," he told BBC Radio Humberside as crowds lined the bridge. "I'm just a homeless guy pushing a shopping trolley, and the next thing you know is this." He said the bridge had always been an iconic landmark for him: when he first set off on a test walk south, years ago, it was the only part of that journey he remembered.
Bushby has said the idea for the walk came after the breakdown of his marriage. On Monday morning he walks from Hessle to Queen Victoria Square in Hull, where a reception will be held outside the Civic Hall, before the final stretch to the house in north Hull where his mother, Angela, raised him.