Former paratrooper Karl Bushby ends 28-year walk in Hull

Karl Bushby, a 57-year-old former paratrooper from Hull, has walked back to his home city, ending a journey that began in 1998, according to The Guardian. He completed the penultimate leg of the walk, which finished in Queen Victoria Square in Hull, and crossed the Humber Bridge back into the city on the same calendar date he had set off.

Bushby began the walk in Punta Arenas, Chile, on November 1, 1998, at the age of 29. He had originally intended it as a 12-year trip. It lasted 28 years and covered about 36,000 miles across 29 countries, according to ABC News and The Guardian.

He set two rules for himself: not to return home until the walk was finished, and not to use any form of transport to move forward. Along the way he crossed the frozen Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, and the Darien Gap, a roadless jungle region in Central America.

The Guardian reported that he was threatened at gunpoint, came face to face with a polar bear, and was held in custody in Russia. He was convicted there of being a spy and sentenced to deportation. After his first trolley broke down, he pushed a loaded trolley he called Beast 2.

Bushby also swam the English Channel before reaching Britain, according to his expedition website. Two girlfriends left him during the trek, The Guardian reported in October.

The filmmaker Werner Herzog appeared on stage with Bushby in Hull for a documentary about the journey. Bushby's mother, Angela, had planned to greet him at the garden gate of his childhood home at the end of the final leg. The Guardian reported that the return made Bushby the first person to have walked continuously around the world and the holder of the longest unbroken foot journey.