The Long Hull: Karl Bushby reflects on perseverance & 'best of humanity' on his 28-year journey home

And as promised, let's go now to our spotlight segment. And joining us from Hull in northeast England in Yorkshire, he's just completed that 50,000-kilometre, 28-year journey. Carl Bushby, thank you for speaking with us here on France 24. It's a pleasure, absolutely. Good afternoon. I haven't even managed to get changed yet. I'm still in my outfit. What a day. Seeing your old childhood street, hugging your mother, meeting your granddaughter. Absolutely. It's been phenomenal. I mean, it's been one of the best welcome homes you could ever imagine. It's hard to describe just how today felt. 28 years on the road. You're speaking to us. You've completed your journey the same year that there was this blockbuster movie about Odysseus. Do you feel like Odysseus or just a guy who went for a long walk? This is a real 21st century odyssey. They're a little different. Not so many giant cyclops, but giant bureaucratic problems and hurdles to overcome, that's for sure. And the beginning of your journey was fraught, the middle of your journey was fraught, and you never, ever gave up. It was all about persevering? Absolutely. That's what it's really all about. I mean, there was no point did we ever think we couldn't do it. There was a couple of really difficult parts, but, you know, we were in this to the very end. It was all about tenacity. It was all about just persevering. There was always a solution to the problem. Always a solution. What was the most unlikely solution? Normally the politics, it was, it was finding the right people in the right place, um, and getting that right message. And, um, you'd be amazed at what you can really pull out of the bag when you're up against the wall. Um, and even just the very, at the very end there, just organizing to get me across the English channel. I mean, we had to really dig deep and make the right connections on that one. And I was thinking we weren't going home this year. Um, but in 11th hour, it all came together. And you swam across, were you, did you have second thoughts about, it's a 34-kilometer journey swimming across. Well, we didn't, I mean, I was lucky that we had, you know, 300 kilometers of swimming behind me in the Caspian Sea to get from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan. Because we couldn't go north or south, Russia and Iran, you know, geopolitics again. So, we had that behind me, so the channel didn't quite look as fearsome. Again, it was the politics that was really the stepping stone, the missing piece of that jigsaw puzzle. But once we got that in place and I could get in the water, then it was just a matter of math, time, speed, distance. And I just had to pull it out of the bag and keep going. And, you know, within I think it was 20 hours altogether to get me onto the coast of Dover. 20 hours onto the coast of Dover. What do you do when you first arrive in Dover? Get out of the water with a big smile on your face, because it's behind you. It's done. That was the big one, the last major challenge, the last big barrier, and it felt pretty good. The question everybody in the newsroom wants to know, that crossing of the Bering Strait, how do you get across these shelves of ice, which sometimes are not steady at all? Well, pretty much like Odysseus, with the look of the gods behind you, it really was. Yes. Uh... No one had ever walked from Alaska to Russia. We didn't even think we were going to pull it off the first time, but the weather conditions lined up perfectly, and I often talk about being like Moses watching the Red Sea part. It was that good. The right conditions, little wind, the temperatures dropped, put a bit of a surface on sea ice, around minus 35 degrees Celsius, and that allowed us... To make the necessary progress to get our way into Russia, across the Bering Strait, and then eventually down onto the Russian coast. And you had a traveling partner with you. You come face-to-face with a bear at that point in time. How do you keep your cool? We met two bears, ultimately, out there on the ice. It wasn't such a big deal. Luckily, it was during daylight hours, so that kind of helps. But the bears got a good look at you, and it was me and my buddy with all our equipment and stuff, and the bear decided, you know what, another day. Another day, and you finally make it across. You've said in interviews how 99.9% of the people you met were great. Did this journey, is that what it's about, really? It's a solitary endeavor to go walking across four continents, and yet it's about the people, too? They say it takes a village. In this case, it took a world. I mean, literally, the world was my support network, Tim. I'm not sitting here today if it wasn't for those people. Not just individuals, the kindness of strangers, sponsors, family. But nation states, you know, people like the Azerbaijani government that helped us get across, they put together and supported us across the Caspian Sea, things like that. There are many countries that, you know, had to think twice about letting me pass through their countries, but they got on board and they allowed me passage. You know, all of this helps. And right down to the individual people. And just to clarify, 99.99999% of the very best of humanity I've met on the road. 99.99. Is it true the story that there was a man in South America who gave you a postcard to deliver in Austria? Yes, he stopped me in the deserts in southern Chile and he said, look, I'm going to give you 50 bucks and I've got a postcard. I want you to hand deliver it to my friend in Austria when you get there. It took like 27 years to get that postcard to him. We got to Vienna, Austria. We found the guy. He was like 83 when we got there. But we managed to hand deliver. On another record, it's got to be the slowest hand-delivered mail ever in human history. I'm sure of that. 28 years, you come back to Hull. Obviously, from the outside looking in, has England changed or is it all still the same? Everything's changed. A lot has changed. The world has changed in so many ways. He's, you know. You know, I've changed. My home country has changed quite a lot. Quite a lot. I mean, you know, we're talking everything from infrastructure. There are roads that exist that never existed when I left. So, you know, it's hard for me to recognize most of the places that I've been today. Even though it's a town that I grew up in. Is it the same Britain? You know, I don't know if I've been around long enough to really get to know it just yet. I arrived home, and honestly, Britain was kind of like just another country that I had to get used to. I had to understand how the pound works, the brands of things in supermarkets. I had to remember not to look the wrong way when I'm crossing the road, because I've been away from home for so long that, yeah, it was like coming into another country that I have to readjust to and understand. The, uh, uh... One of the inspirations for a lot of people is now we live in this age where everybody's on their screens all the time. And here you are out in the real world engaging with total strangers. Is this the future or are you a relic of the past in that regard? I mean, that's a good question. It's hard to say. You know, I mean, technology has helped me extensively. This machine is, it's a communication marvel when used the right way, but I'm lucky because I'm out there on the ground doing the good old-fashioned physical stuff. So I guess this is where worlds collide. This is where they overlap. Um, Let's see now if I become just some kind of social media monster now that I'm back here sitting and looking at the screens more. You know, Odysseus, he stayed a little while, and then afterwards he got bored and went back out for more adventures. Is that your fate, too? I will let you know. Carl Buschby, congratulations on your incredible accomplishment. Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Cheers, guys. Have a good day. Take care.