Karl Bushby has been walking home for 27 years, in Kazakhstan in 2019 (Image: Karl Bushby )
Karl Bushby has a big grin on his bearded face. “I often have to remind people, I started this in the last century,” he says about his incredible 36,000-mile trek from the tip of South America to – all going well – his mum’s house in Yorkshire next year.
The former paratrooper has been on a one-man mission to walk without the aid of mechanised transport from the mountainous wilderness of Patagonia to his home city of Hull since he set off in 1998. For a staggering 27 years, Karl, now aged 56, has trudged along at around 3mph for 18 miles a day, traversing scorched desert highways, sweltering jungles and treacherous ice roads in a real-life journey to rival the pages of J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
And just like the book’s principal character Frodo Baggins, Karl’s quest has been a “dangerous business” at times, including run-ins with heavily armed Marxist guerrillas, Russian secret service agents and polar bears…more of which to follow.
But despite facing terrors that would stop most people in their tracks, the stoic Yorkshireman has taken every obstacle in his stride, armed with an “absolutely bulletproof” mindset instilled by his training in the British Army.
Some of his challenges have been practical. For instance, he must spend 90 out of every 180 days outside of the EU to navigate the European visa system, a similar problem he previously encountered in Russia.
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Karl in the dangerous Darien Gap in 2001 (Image: Karl Bushby )
And now, with 1,100 miles left to go, having made it as far as Hungary, Karl is waiting to hear if French officials will grant him permission to walk through the Channel Tunnel via a service route.
If they refuse, he will need to swim the 21 miles across the Channel instead.
“It would be pretty miserable if it was a no,” he admits. “Even the Russians let me through, despite world tensions.”
Still, it wouldn’t be his first plunge after he swam 186 miles across the Caspian Sea, in Asia, over 31 days last year. While he awaits the decision, he plans to spend his downtime in Mexico for the winter – flying there and back doesn’t affect the challenge – before taking to the road once more next year.
So, what possessed Karl to take on this mind-blowing feat? Back in 1998, the idea for a global trek formed in his head.
“It was like I’d made a bet in a bar on a particularly raucous night out,” he jokes. Almost three decades later, he’s still going.
Along the way he’s been supported by his father Keith, mother Angela and brother Adrian, along with his US sponsors, Westwood Productions. Throughout our chat he often uses “we” to refer to them, despite being on the road by himself.
Karl took his first step in Patagonia with just $500 in his pocket and all his possessions strapped to a “golf cart” serving as his luggage carrier, nicknamed “The Beast”.
Karl near Nome in Alaska in 2006 (Image: Karl Bushy )
“Stepping on to the road that morning was a mix of things – relief and a bizarreness that we had got to that point,” he said. “Until then, most of the time it seemed like a silly daydream and then, one day, you’re standing on a road that’s possibly 36,000 miles long.
“You feel like you’re further away from home than a manned mission to Mars or Jupiter at that point and if you’re not looking for adventure, adventure is coming for you like a tsunami. You’re at the mercy of the whole world.”
His journey started well but the Beast had broken down by the time Karl reached Peru.
He tried to replace it with pack animals but had little joy with a grumpy donkey he dubbed “Genghis Khan” and later a horse that also didn’t enjoy the long walks.
Karl backpacked the rest of the way to Nicaragua where a Beast II was made, which is still with him now.
At the start of his journey, with his long blond hair and striking blue eyes, Karl resembled the singer Kurt Cobain, the ill-fated heartthrob star of US grunge band Nirvana – at least according to his dad, Keith, now 78, who served in the SAS.
He has had several serious relationships during his time on the road, although he assures me he is “very single” at present.
His family has had to adjust to Karl being away for so long, but changes in technology have made communication easier.
“When he started there was no internet, no media and no way of contacting him,” Keith tells me. “Now I can speak to him face-to-face or send money through the internet.” One of the scariest moments he faced as a parent was when Karl trekked through the notorious Darién Gap, a vast area of roadless rainforest making up the South-Central American border region between Colombia and Panama.
Karl with a frozen beard and eyebrows in Alaska 2005 (Image: Karl Bushby )
At the time it was infested with heavily armed FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) Marxist guerrillas, as well as government forces and Right-wing militias.
“He had a gun shoved up his nose a couple of times there,” says Keith.
Karl was later jailed in Panama in 2001 for 18 days as an illegal immigrant, but the most heart-stopping moments were his face-to-face encounters with polar bears.
“There was one tense stand-off where we were faced off on a small narrow path along the bottom of a cliff along the Siberian coast,” he recalls.
“We couldn’t get away from the polar bear, but eventually it turned around, walked away and left us to it.
“It just wasn’t that hungry.” In March 2006, Karl and French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer (who joined Karl for a stretch of his journey in Russia) became the first people to cross the Bering Strait, a frozen 56-mile section of sea ice between Alaska and Russia, on foot. The pair completed the treacherous crossing in 15 days, an incredible feat only marred when Russian border guards arrested the two men after refusing to believe their story.
They were handed to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the feared Russian spook branch which replaced the infamous KGB after the ColdWar.
“They were convinced we were not who we said we were,” says Karl. “We managed to get around them wanting to throw us in jail for five years, but they were basically on my tail for years throughout my time in Russia.”
He recalls their threatening taunts including the time he was told, “No one would find your body in the tundra if you disappeared”.
Karl adds: “They had their ways of trying to figure you out, from harsh interrogations to taking you downtown, where they bought the most expensive vodka and wine at a local club and drank you into the ground while questioning you.There were so many methods.”
Karl trekking through Mexico in 2002 (Image: Karl Bushby )
Karl’s team later found a hotel he had been staying in had been fitted with cameras. He was also constantly followed by an FSB handler.
Yet Russian people, like many ordinary global citizens he met on his journey, were always accommodating. One former Russian paratrooper literally gave Karl the shirt off his back, or rather his telnyashka, a traditional blue and white horizontal striped shirt worn by soldiers under their uniform.
“We ended up in a tiny village right on the northern coast and then got absolutely hammered one night with him,” he remembers.
“We shaved my head, which is what paratroopers do, but that led to grave consequences the following days after I got snow blindness and sunburn from losing all my hair.” After parting ways with Dimitri and travelling through Siberia, Karl was forced to “plant his flag” on the route and exit Russia numerous times as per the conditions of his visa. He travelled the country in winter – using the iced rivers as roads, like locals.
“I always get to tell people that 99.99% of everyone you’ll ever meet is just the best of humanity,” he says of the kindness he’s encountered en route.
“The poorest of the poor have been the kindest, it’s really surprising just how much the kindness of strangers will help you on a journey.”
The book Karl remembers from his childhood (Image: Karl Bushby )
Now 97% along the way of his mammoth walk home, Karl admits there isn’t much he’s missed about the UK – except for our national dish.
“It’s very difficult to find good fish and chips in the world,” he laughs.
His desire for adventure started when he was a child. “We used to have little adventures when we were kids, we’d wander into the fields and beyond and be back before dark,” he says.
But reflecting on why he’s chosen this remarkable life in particular, he mentions a book about animals his mum has kept since his childhood days.
“It had all these scenes on the pages such as deserts, jungles and mountains, and I remember it having this influence on me,” he recalls.
“It’s great because I can go back and tick off each one of those environments, those scenes in the book I read as a child, which I’ve now travelled through as a man.”
