Hull, England - For 28 years and one day, Karl Bushby took the long way home on an epic odyssey of human endurance back to northern England. His adventure was made even more difficult - physically and mentally - with his two self-imposed guiding rules: he could not advance his journey with the help of any machine and he could not return home during the entire time, even if family or friends died. It was also hardly a direct route.
His journey was delayed at various times for months, if not years, by illness, visa restrictions in Russia, Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and having to swim massive bodies of water. His life was also threatened by armed gangs in the lawless Darien Gap in Central America, jail in Panama and a polar bear in Siberia. Starting out at 29, he sported golden locks in his earliest pictures.
Now 57, his beard is salt-and-pepper, and the elements and time weather his face. On Monday, he took his final steps of an estimated 75 million to a hometown hero's welcome of claps and cheers as he walked into Hull, a gritty and proud working-class port city. There was a big team, the biggest team: Earth.
That's what it took to get me back," said Bushby to the assembled well-wishers in Hull, a working-class port city about 150 miles north of London. "You wouldn't believe just how many people have been involved in this, to get us around the kinds of obstacles that we faced. We faced down governments.
We faced down some of the hardest challenges. We've had to create two world records just to get back here. And I couldn't have done it on my own.
So it was a world, global effort." Bushby began what came to be known as his "Goliath Expedition" in Chile on Nov. 1, 1998. He made his way north through Central America, the United States and Canada, then crossed the Bering Sea to Russia in the world's first recorded attempt. He then carried on through Central Asia and swam for 31 days across the Caspian Sea in another reported first, in order to circumvent the war in Ukraine.
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