Karl Bushby hugs his mother at her Hull home and ends a 28-year walk from the tip of South America, the BBC and AFP report

The last few yards took the longest. Karl Bushby, a former British paratrooper who set off on foot from Punta Arenas, Chile, in November 1998, reached his mother’s front door in Hull, in northern England, on Monday, according to BBC News. BBC Radio Humberside’s live page logged the moment at 13:32 GMT, or 5:32 a.m. PT. Reaching the door, he said, according to the BBC: “It feels surreal. It’s the end of a 28-year journey.” His mother, Angela, who had not seen him for a decade, told the BBC: “It’s good to have him home.” The live page reported that she greeted him through tears with a joke: “Where have you been?”

The Guardian described the reunion at the gate in more detail. “You’ve changed a bit,” Bushby told her, according to the paper. “I’m older,” his mother replied. “We both are,” he said. “Well done for hanging in there.” The Guardian reported that she had waited at the gate of his childhood home, as she had promised, and gave her age as 75. In the front garden, according to the Independent, which carried a PA Media report, his son Adam, now 36, his father, Keith, and his granddaughter stood among the people posing for photographers. BBC News reported that Bushby met the 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time on Sunday, when family members came to meet him at the Humber Bridge; the Guardian placed that first meeting inside the house on Monday.

Hull had turned out for him hours earlier. A crowd of up to 1,000 people cheered him in the city centre, according to Euronews, which carried an AFP report. In Queen Victoria Square, outside City Hall, he told well-wishers: “There has never been a welcome home quite like this, I’m sure,” according to the Independent. The Independent quoted his next line as “This is absolute madness,” while the Guardian heard “This is absolutely madness,” a small gap this desk could not settle without the original audio.

He also appeared, briefly, to lose his way in his own city. “I’ve no idea which direction I’m going. Everybody point the way,” he said, according to the Guardian. “Sorry to keep you all waiting – it’s been a while.” The paper reported that he pushed a heavily loaded trolley nicknamed Beast 2, carrying medicine, sleeping bags and head torches, because his first one broke down.

Civic and national figures added their own words. Hull’s Lord Mayor, Maria Coward, told him: “For 28 years – 10,229 days – Hull has been waiting for your return,” according to the Independent. By this desk’s count, Nov. 1, 1998, to Nov. 2, 2026, spans 10,228 days, so the mayor’s figure matches a count that includes both the departure day and Monday. Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, read out a message from Prime Minister Andy Burnham. “To walk around the world from Chile and back again is an achievement of truly remarkable proportions,” the message said, according to the Independent, which reported that it also thanked Bushby for his service as a soldier.

Bushby credited other people for the feat. “I didn’t do this alone. There was a big team, the biggest team: Earth,” he said from the stage, according to the Guardian. BBC News rendered the same thought as: “The biggest team - Earth - got me back here.”

The rules behind the walk stayed simple. He would not return to the U.K. until the journey ended, and he would not use transport to advance, according to BBC News. Euronews reported that the idea grew from a birthday card his father, Keith, an Army veteran, sent him in the mid-1990s, which mentioned an argument among special forces soldiers over whether someone could walk from London to New York by way of the Bering land bridge. According to Euronews, Bushby drew a continuous line across Europe and Asia to North America and, instead of stopping at New York, carried it straight down to the tip of Chile, then set out to walk it in reverse.

The route ran through four continents, according to BBC News, including the jungles of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama, the frozen Bering Strait, which he crossed in 2006, and, last month, the English Channel, which he swam. The Guardian reported that he visited 29 countries and that, last month, he described facing a gunpoint threat and a polar bear, as well as a spell in custody in Russia that ended with an order to deport him. The Guardian's account doesn't name any Russian court record, and the desk could not check one. Russia alone took almost 10 years, according to Euronews, because of visa problems and weather that allowed travel only a few months a year; when Russia refused him a visa in 2012, he walked in protest from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington, which eventually led to the paperwork, Euronews reported.

The walking itself took up only part of the time. Bushby said only about 15 of the 28 years went to walking, according to BBC News, which reported that visa trouble, the 2007 global economic crash and Covid caused the delays, and that he often waited out the gaps in Mexico, where living costs run low. The BBC reported that he set off as a “penniless backpacker” and later found sponsors and a book deal.

The figures attached to the walk do not line up across outlets. BBC News, the Independent and Euronews give 31,000 miles, or 50,000 km. The Guardian gives 36,000 miles, and the summary of the BBC’s own live page says “more than 31,000 miles (58,000km),” a conversion that does not match its 31,000-mile figure, since 31,000 miles equals about 50,000 km. His age also varies: the Guardian and the Independent give 57, while the BBC live page calls him the “56-year-old”; the BBC and the Guardian say he set off aged 29, the Independent says 28. The Guardian reported that the journey makes him the first person to walk continuously around the world; this desk found no independent body’s ruling on that record in the sources it checked.

A film crew followed the last steps. German director Werner Herzog joined the welcome, according to the Guardian, and he has a feature-length documentary about the journey under way, titled “Walk of Life,” according to Euronews. BBC News reported that Bushby signed a deal with Herzog near the end of the trek and that the two appeared together on Shakespeare Beach near Dover after he waded ashore in October.

Some of the people he met along the way came to Hull. Biju Kurian travelled from the U.S., according to the BBC live page, which reported that he hosted Bushby for nine days in Oklahoma in 2014. “He came for one day but stayed for nine,” Kurian told the BBC. French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer, who crossed the Bering Strait with Bushby in 2006, also came. “I wanted to come here to welcome him in his home town,” Kieffer said, according to the live page.

What comes next looks less certain to Bushby than the walk did. After returning to the U.K., he said he expected to struggle as he readjusts, according to BBC News. “Everything that I am and everything that I know of me is going to go away,” he told the BBC. “And that’s going to be a problem.” In the city centre, according to the Independent, he offered a lighter outlook: “I guess I’ll be seeing you around. I’ll be knocking about for a while, I guess.”

Seems News could not reach Bushby, his family or Hull City Council for this report. It relies on the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent (PA Media), Euronews (AFP) and posts on X, with times converted to Pacific time (UTC−8). The Associated Press blocked this desk’s fetch, so its report appears nowhere in the story.