The adventurer addressed the press at Hull City Hall on Monday after an emotional reunion with his mother
Karl Bushby at a press conference in Hull City Hall(Image: Donna Clifford/Hull Live)
Sitting by the famous “Beast” containing all his belongings, Karl Bushby answered questions from the media which covered his daring escapades, his future plans and his joy at being reunited with his family. The 57-year-old remained composed and well-spoken after what can only have been an emotional day.
Just two hours earlier he was standing at the gate of his childhood home, hugging his mother who he hadn’t seen for 28 years. The expedition – to get from Chile to Hull on foot – was originally expected to take 12 years.
The first question centred on acts of kindness he has received from people of all economic status across the globe. The common theme was the fact that most people wanted to help and give whatever they could, often stopping for a chat along the way.
“People have taken me into their homes when I’ve been very sick and they’ve nursed me back to health,” he said. “I’ve had people pull me off the road who live in shacks built from car parts and they give you a bowl of rice and some water and talk to you on the side of the road in the desert in Peru somewhere.”
“From this, to hotel owners, who have more money than they know what to do with, all just wanting to hear stories and sit and talk. In Chile, for example, there is one big road, Route 5, and everyone gets to know you on that road.
“Trucks are passing by and there’s bottles of water just getting chucked out of the cab window in front of you. Oranges and stuff. And then another truck will throw some water out. So I had this rolling support network. I don’t know who these people are. They just kept me fed and kept me watered. That would happen throughout the world. The world has been my support network, it’s incredible.”
And was there ever a time where he thought he may not make it home? Karl reached a roadblock just weeks before the end of his journey, when he was denied access to a service tunnel to cross the English Channel on foot. He realised that he would have to swim the channel to reach British shores.
“There have been some times we were truly up against it and we questioned how we were going to do it. We always believed in ourselves that we could figure things out. It got tough.
“Right up to the last minute, the whole getting across the English Channel was becoming a real problem. Just before I got in the water I was convinced ‘I’m going to be here for another year or so trying to figure this out.’ And right at the 11th hour it all came together, everyone came to an agreement and I rushed into the water, tout suite.
“The math said 12 years plus – the Darién Gap, the Bering Strait – we predicted a couple of years just to get over that thing. There was no way we could have foreseen visa bans, financial crises, the pandemic.”
The last few days there have been a few ‘lasts’ which was “kind of sad”. “Each one of those has been an emotional event,” he said.
When asked about a moment that sticks out that tested his resilience, Karl cited the Darién Gap, a densely forested area between Colombia and Panama. He said he called on his experience as a paratrooper to get him through.
“The Darién Gap really tested me pretty hard. For me that was very much an ‘escape an invasion’ exercise as we knew it back in the days. I felt I had to put a lot of skillset into action at that point because there was a real threat to life. Creeping through the front lines of a pretty gnarly war at the time and the terrain was absolutely unforgivable. The Darién Gap is a truly special place and it was very different back then to what it is today.”
He described it as a two-month “boys’ adventure dream”, the “real Indiana Jones stuff” which he admits was “kind of scary”. “It got really interesting and it was physically very demanding.”
“After that you’re looking at the Arctic. Arctic Alaska in particular was a whole set of really hard lessons and a couple of ‘oh my God, I think we’re going to die’ moments. By the time we got into Siberia we’d learned a lot and I was an old hand at that point. There were some hard lessons learned in the winter in Alaska.”
There seems to be a very British obsession with what Karl is going to do next, and this, of course, came up during the questions from the press. “I’ve got to find my way,” he replied.
“I’ve literally rocked up with very little,” he said, as he pointed to “the beast” cart which holds all of his possessions. “I’ve got about £40 or £50 in my pocket, so I’m starting from zero here. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“People go on these big journeys for 5, 6, 7, 8 years and they get back. Everyone I’ve known has struggled when they get home, to readjust. They go through these ups and downs and depression and all kinds of stuff. I’m expecting a bit of that. The only way I can think to get over that is to get another mission, another passion, and get busy.”
Karl left when his son was a child. He had divorced from the mother of his child and they had moved to Northern Ireland, leaving Karl unable to see him regularly. “Being a British soldier you’re away a lot, so you’re used to that.” The big question for the young dad at the time was: “How can I be of best service and use to my son?” “This kind of a journey, if I could pull this off, would be of more meaningful to him than in any other way. And I think we’ve pulled it off. Me and him are still close.” He said meeting his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time has been “amazing”.
“Meeting mother was truly an emotional moment. I’ve had it at the back of my mind for quite some time. It’s all still one big blurry mess in my head. But what a moment. A long time in the making.” He said it was “almost shocking” to see his mother after so long and it will take some time to process the emotions around the experience.
Did you know you can make Hull Live a preferred source of Hull news in Google, which will mean you get more of our breaking news, exclusives, and must-read stories straight away? Here’s more information about what this means and how to do it – you can also do it straight away by clicking here .
