Karl Bushby left Chile in 1998, headed home to the UK with only two rules: no transport to advance, and no going home until he arrived on foot.
It is an odyssey worthy of Ulysses himself, a saga fit for the old Nordic Gods … the spirit of young British men and women to do amazing and slightly crazy things is not yet crushed, but still alive and well.
— Frederick Forsyth
The ex-paratrooper from Kingston upon Hull, England, had never done anything quite like this. Who had?
On the first of November 1998 he walked out of Punta Arenas, Chile with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, turned north for home, and stepped onto the line.
A line drawn on a map: four continents, a frozen sea, deserts, mountains, jungles, and over 50,000 km of unknown.
The plan never changed: keep walking, swim when he must, until the line reaches his mother's front door.
No transport to advance. No compromising the route.
Stay on mission, get home.
On 5 October 2026, Karl reached British soil at Shakespeare Beach near Dover after swimming the English Channel.
Approximately 400 km remained to Hull at the landing, with the route leading to his mother's home there.
#journey #KarlBushby
