Adventurer Karl Bushby arrives in Hull after 28-year walk from South America

Adventurer Karl Bushby has been mobbed by well-wishers as he arrived in his home town of Hull on the last day of his 28-year walk from South America.

Mr Bushby, now 57, told crowds in the city centre: “There has never been a welcome home quite like this.”

The former paratrooper set off from the southern end of Chile in 1998, when he was 28, vowing to walk all the way home without using any form of motorised transport.

On Monday, he made the penultimate stop of his epic journey in the centre of Hull, where he was greeted by hundreds of well-wishers outside the City Hall.

Karl Bushby (right) speaking to MP Karl Turner after he arrived back in Hull (Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA)

PA Wire

He was mobbed and cheered as he walked into Queen Victoria Square wheeling his cart, before telling the crowd: “There has never been a welcome home quite like this, I’m sure.

“This is absolute madness. After 28 years, you couldn’t ask for more than this.

“This is the last, last few steps.”

Mr Bushby was greeted by the Lord Mayor and Hull East MP Karl Turner, who read out a message of congratulations from Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

He went inside for a civic reception before he embarks on the final leg of his 31,000-mile (50,000km) journey – the three miles to his mother’s house, in the north of the city, which he last visited in 1998.

Monday’s leg crowns years of dangerous escapades, including crossing the notorious Darien Gap in Central America and traversing the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia on the frozen sea.

Mr Bushby arrived back in England earlier this month, announcing that he had swum the Channel.