Vol. II, No. 131 From Our Region to Yours
World

Man Who Walked 31,000 Miles to Get Home Asked by Mother Whether He Wants a Lift Anywhere Tomorrow

Karl Bushby left Punta Arenas, Chile, in November 1998 on foot with one rule, no motorised transport, and finished at his mother's front door in Hull on Monday. The family car remains available.

By 2 min read

A long row of red-brick terraced houses runs down a quiet street in Hull under a flat grey sky, with wheelie bins on the pavement and a cream-brick end house behind a low white wall in the foreground.
Terraced houses on Ryde Street in Hull, the city Karl Bushby walked back to after 28 years and roughly 31,000 miles. Photo: JThomas / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

HULL, England — Karl Bushby, the former paratrooper who set out from the southern tip of Chile in November 1998 to walk home to Hull without once using motorised transport, arrived at his mother’s house on Monday after 28 years and roughly 31,000 miles, and was offered, according to family sources, a lift to the shops in the morning if he needs anything.

The offer was described as sincere and entirely without irony, which is consistent with the way mothers have been offering lifts to adult sons since the invention of the car.

Bushby’s route, which he called the Goliath Expedition, took him up the length of South and Central America, through the Darién Gap, across the United States, over the frozen Bering Strait into Russia, across Mongolia, China and Central Asia, and, in 2024, swimming across the Caspian Sea, since a ferry would have counted. He was jailed in Panama for entering without a visa, detained in Russia and in China, banned from Russia for five years, and had his handcart stolen outside a bar in Montana. It was later recovered from a quarry. The trip was originally scheduled to take 12 years.

His final approach crossed the Humber Bridge to crowds that local reports described as overwhelming. Asked earlier how it felt to be back, Bushby said, “It’s been a while,” which experts on Yorkshire understatement confirmed is the strongest emotional statement available in the region.

At the door, his mother reportedly greeted him with “Where have you been?”, a question that every mother in Britain has asked at some point, and that for the first time in recorded history had a 31,000-mile answer.

Transport analysts noted that Bushby’s refusal of the lift on Tuesday, should it happen, would be his first decision of the post-expedition era, and that nothing in the original rules covers the corner shop. “The rule was unbroken footsteps from Punta Arenas to Hull,” said one transport analyst. “He’s in Hull now. Technically he can get in the car. Emotionally, we’d be surprised.”

The household’s kettle was described as having been on since approximately the Humber Bridge.

Bushby’s mother has not commented publicly on the lift. The car, a family member confirmed, has a full tank, and has had one, in principle, since 1998.

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