Oddities, assortments, Post up anything that doesn't quite fit on other threads

In the autumn of 1998, a 29-year-old man from Hull, England stood at the southern tip of South America with $500 in his pocket, a cart full of gear, and a plan so outrageous that his friends laughed at it.
He was going to walk home.
Not drive. Not fly. Not take a train. Walk. From the bottom of Chile, through the jungles and mountains and deserts and frozen oceans of the world, all the way back to England. He had given himself two unbreakable rules before he took that first step: no motorised transport would ever move him forward along his route, and he could not return home until he could walk there.
His name is Karl Bushby. And 27 years later, he is still going.
Karl served for over a decade in the British Army's elite Parachute Regiment — the kind of training that teaches a person that the body can take far more than the mind is willing to believe. When he left the military in his late twenties, restless and searching for something that felt worthy of the one life he had, he drew a line on a map. It started at the southern tip of South America and ended at his mother's front door in Hull. He named the mission the Goliath Expedition, packed everything he owned into a cart he called The Beast, and on the 1st of November 1998, he started walking.
Nobody expected him to last six months.
He walked through Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Then he reached the Darién Gap — a lawless stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama with no roads, no infrastructure, and a very real presence of armed groups who did not welcome outsiders. Local people warned him he would not come out alive. Karl spent months navigating it anyway, one slow kilometre at a time, arriving on the other side still walking and still breathing.
Then he walked through all of Central America. All of Mexico. And then, state by state, mile by mile, all the way across the United States. He reached Alaska by 2005 — one of the most remote places on earth, and still impossibly far from home.
The next problem was the Bering Strait.
In March 2006, Karl and French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed 240 kilometres of shifting Arctic sea ice in immersion suits, jumping between moving floes, carrying a rifle for protection from polar bears. It took fourteen days. When they finally stepped onto Russian soil, they were immediately detained by border guards. What should have been a triumph became the beginning of years of visa battles, diplomatic standoffs, and bureaucratic dead-ends. Karl was eventually banned from Russia entirely. Rather than give up, he walked over 3,000 miles in the wrong direction — from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. — just to protest the decision in person. It worked. By 2014, the ban was lifted, and he crossed back into Russia to continue walking.
He walked through Russia. Then Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. Then China. Then the Silk Road — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Then Iran refused him entry. And then COVID-19 shut the entire world down.
Karl was stranded near the Caspian Sea with no legal path forward and no way to preserve the unbroken line of his footsteps. He couldn't go through Iran. He couldn't re-enter Russia. The only route that kept his journey intact ran across the water.
So he decided to swim it.
The Caspian Sea. 288 kilometres of open water. Karl openly admits he is not a swimmer and does not particularly enjoy swimming. He trained for over a year anyway. In October 2024, accompanied by fellow long-distance walker Angela Maxwell and two Azerbaijani swimmers, he entered the water in Kazakhstan. Each day they swam in two three-hour sessions, resting on support boats through the night. After 31 days and 132 hours in the water, he touched land on the coast of Azerbaijan.
He got out of the sea and started walking again.
Through Azerbaijan. Georgia. Turkey. He crossed the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul on the 2nd of May 2025 — stepping back into Europe for the first time in 27 years. By November of that year, he had reached Budapest. By December, he was crossing Slovakia. As of early 2026, he is moving steadily west across Central Europe, counting down the kilometres to a coastline he has not seen since the last century.
He is expected to reach the English Channel by mid-2026 and arrive in Hull by September.
One final obstacle remains. He cannot fly across the Channel. He cannot sail it. He cannot even swim it under his own rules. The only remaining option is to walk through the Channel Tunnel's service corridor — something that has never been permitted before. He has applied. The decision is pending. After 27 years, the last battle may be the strangest one yet.
Karl is 56 years old now. His son grew up while he was on the road. He has been arrested, jailed, frostbitten, and starved. He has walked through dictatorships and pandemics. He has crossed a frozen ocean and swum a sea. He has spent roughly 13 of those 27 years actively walking, with the rest lost to visa queues, bureaucratic walls, global crises, and the particular stubbornness required to refuse to quit when the whole world tells you to.
When people ask him why, he doesn't mention records. He doesn't talk about fame. He says it was a challenge. That it was hard. That no one had done it before. That one day in his twenties he drew a line on a map and felt something shift in his chest that never quite settled back into place.
And then he says something that stops most people cold.
In 27 years of walking through 25 countries, he says, 99.99% of every person he has ever met has shown him kindness. Strangers who fed him when he had nothing. People who opened their homes to him in the middle of the night. Locals who walked beside him for miles just to make sure he was safe.
The world, Karl Bushby says, is a far gentler place than the news would ever have you believe.
Somewhere in Europe right now, a man in worn-out boots is putting one foot in front of the other, moving west, carrying 27 years of steps and storms and small human kindnesses toward a front door he hasn't touched since the last century.
Almost home. Still walking.
If you know someone who is carrying something heavy right now and needs a reason to keep going — this one is for them.
 
notrevE5 said:
In the autumn of 1998, a 29-year-old man from Hull, England stood at the southern tip of South America with $500 in his pocket, a cart full of gear, and a plan so outrageous that his friends laughed at it.
He was going to walk home.
Not drive. Not fly. Not take a train. Walk. From the bottom of Chile, through the jungles and mountains and deserts and frozen oceans of the world, all the way back to England. He had given himself two unbreakable rules before he took that first step: no motorised transport would ever move him forward along his route, and he could not return home until he could walk there.
His name is Karl Bushby. And 27 years later, he is still going.
Karl served for over a decade in the British Army's elite Parachute Regiment — the kind of training that teaches a person that the body can take far more than the mind is willing to believe. When he left the military in his late twenties, restless and searching for something that felt worthy of the one life he had, he drew a line on a map. It started at the southern tip of South America and ended at his mother's front door in Hull. He named the mission the Goliath Expedition, packed everything he owned into a cart he called The Beast, and on the 1st of November 1998, he started walking.
Nobody expected him to last six months.
He walked through Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Then he reached the Darién Gap — a lawless stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama with no roads, no infrastructure, and a very real presence of armed groups who did not welcome outsiders. Local people warned him he would not come out alive. Karl spent months navigating it anyway, one slow kilometre at a time, arriving on the other side still walking and still breathing.
Then he walked through all of Central America. All of Mexico. And then, state by state, mile by mile, all the way across the United States. He reached Alaska by 2005 — one of the most remote places on earth, and still impossibly far from home.
The next problem was the Bering Strait.
In March 2006, Karl and French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed 240 kilometres of shifting Arctic sea ice in immersion suits, jumping between moving floes, carrying a rifle for protection from polar bears. It took fourteen days. When they finally stepped onto Russian soil, they were immediately detained by border guards. What should have been a triumph became the beginning of years of visa battles, diplomatic standoffs, and bureaucratic dead-ends. Karl was eventually banned from Russia entirely. Rather than give up, he walked over 3,000 miles in the wrong direction — from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. — just to protest the decision in person. It worked. By 2014, the ban was lifted, and he crossed back into Russia to continue walking.
He walked through Russia. Then Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. Then China. Then the Silk Road — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Then Iran refused him entry. And then COVID-19 shut the entire world down.
Karl was stranded near the Caspian Sea with no legal path forward and no way to preserve the unbroken line of his footsteps. He couldn't go through Iran. He couldn't re-enter Russia. The only route that kept his journey intact ran across the water.
So he decided to swim it.
The Caspian Sea. 288 kilometres of open water. Karl openly admits he is not a swimmer and does not particularly enjoy swimming. He trained for over a year anyway. In October 2024, accompanied by fellow long-distance walker Angela Maxwell and two Azerbaijani swimmers, he entered the water in Kazakhstan. Each day they swam in two three-hour sessions, resting on support boats through the night. After 31 days and 132 hours in the water, he touched land on the coast of Azerbaijan.
He got out of the sea and started walking again.
Through Azerbaijan. Georgia. Turkey. He crossed the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul on the 2nd of May 2025 — stepping back into Europe for the first time in 27 years. By November of that year, he had reached Budapest. By December, he was crossing Slovakia. As of early 2026, he is moving steadily west across Central Europe, counting down the kilometres to a coastline he has not seen since the last century.
He is expected to reach the English Channel by mid-2026 and arrive in Hull by September.
One final obstacle remains. He cannot fly across the Channel. He cannot sail it. He cannot even swim it under his own rules. The only remaining option is to walk through the Channel Tunnel's service corridor — something that has never been permitted before. He has applied. The decision is pending. After 27 years, the last battle may be the strangest one yet.
Karl is 56 years old now. His son grew up while he was on the road. He has been arrested, jailed, frostbitten, and starved. He has walked through dictatorships and pandemics. He has crossed a frozen ocean and swum a sea. He has spent roughly 13 of those 27 years actively walking, with the rest lost to visa queues, bureaucratic walls, global crises, and the particular stubbornness required to refuse to quit when the whole world tells you to.
When people ask him why, he doesn't mention records. He doesn't talk about fame. He says it was a challenge. That it was hard. That no one had done it before. That one day in his twenties he drew a line on a map and felt something shift in his chest that never quite settled back into place.
And then he says something that stops most people cold.
In 27 years of walking through 25 countries, he says, 99.99% of every person he has ever met has shown him kindness. Strangers who fed him when he had nothing. People who opened their homes to him in the middle of the night. Locals who walked beside him for miles just to make sure he was safe.
The world, Karl Bushby says, is a far gentler place than the news would ever have you believe.
Somewhere in Europe right now, a man in worn-out boots is putting one foot in front of the other, moving west, carrying 27 years of steps and storms and small human kindnesses toward a front door he hasn't touched since the last century.
Almost home. Still walking.
If you know someone who is carrying something heavy right now and needs a reason to keep going — this one is for them.
Click to expand...
Big deal - try supporting Everton mate.
 
notrevE5 said:
In the autumn of 1998, a 29-year-old man from Hull, England stood at the southern tip of South America with $500 in his pocket, a cart full of gear, and a plan so outrageous that his friends laughed at it.
He was going to walk home.
Not drive. Not fly. Not take a train. Walk. From the bottom of Chile, through the jungles and mountains and deserts and frozen oceans of the world, all the way back to England. He had given himself two unbreakable rules before he took that first step: no motorised transport would ever move him forward along his route, and he could not return home until he could walk there.
His name is Karl Bushby. And 27 years later, he is still going.
Karl served for over a decade in the British Army's elite Parachute Regiment — the kind of training that teaches a person that the body can take far more than the mind is willing to believe. When he left the military in his late twenties, restless and searching for something that felt worthy of the one life he had, he drew a line on a map. It started at the southern tip of South America and ended at his mother's front door in Hull. He named the mission the Goliath Expedition, packed everything he owned into a cart he called The Beast, and on the 1st of November 1998, he started walking.
Nobody expected him to last six months.
He walked through Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Then he reached the Darién Gap — a lawless stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama with no roads, no infrastructure, and a very real presence of armed groups who did not welcome outsiders. Local people warned him he would not come out alive. Karl spent months navigating it anyway, one slow kilometre at a time, arriving on the other side still walking and still breathing.
Then he walked through all of Central America. All of Mexico. And then, state by state, mile by mile, all the way across the United States. He reached Alaska by 2005 — one of the most remote places on earth, and still impossibly far from home.
The next problem was the Bering Strait.
In March 2006, Karl and French adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed 240 kilometres of shifting Arctic sea ice in immersion suits, jumping between moving floes, carrying a rifle for protection from polar bears. It took fourteen days. When they finally stepped onto Russian soil, they were immediately detained by border guards. What should have been a triumph became the beginning of years of visa battles, diplomatic standoffs, and bureaucratic dead-ends. Karl was eventually banned from Russia entirely. Rather than give up, he walked over 3,000 miles in the wrong direction — from Los Angeles to the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. — just to protest the decision in person. It worked. By 2014, the ban was lifted, and he crossed back into Russia to continue walking.
He walked through Russia. Then Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. Then China. Then the Silk Road — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Then Iran refused him entry. And then COVID-19 shut the entire world down.
Karl was stranded near the Caspian Sea with no legal path forward and no way to preserve the unbroken line of his footsteps. He couldn't go through Iran. He couldn't re-enter Russia. The only route that kept his journey intact ran across the water.
So he decided to swim it.
The Caspian Sea. 288 kilometres of open water. Karl openly admits he is not a swimmer and does not particularly enjoy swimming. He trained for over a year anyway. In October 2024, accompanied by fellow long-distance walker Angela Maxwell and two Azerbaijani swimmers, he entered the water in Kazakhstan. Each day they swam in two three-hour sessions, resting on support boats through the night. After 31 days and 132 hours in the water, he touched land on the coast of Azerbaijan.
He got out of the sea and started walking again.
Through Azerbaijan. Georgia. Turkey. He crossed the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul on the 2nd of May 2025 — stepping back into Europe for the first time in 27 years. By November of that year, he had reached Budapest. By December, he was crossing Slovakia. As of early 2026, he is moving steadily west across Central Europe, counting down the kilometres to a coastline he has not seen since the last century.
He is expected to reach the English Channel by mid-2026 and arrive in Hull by September.
One final obstacle remains. He cannot fly across the Channel. He cannot sail it. He cannot even swim it under his own rules. The only remaining option is to walk through the Channel Tunnel's service corridor — something that has never been permitted before. He has applied. The decision is pending. After 27 years, the last battle may be the strangest one yet.
Karl is 56 years old now. His son grew up while he was on the road. He has been arrested, jailed, frostbitten, and starved. He has walked through dictatorships and pandemics. He has crossed a frozen ocean and swum a sea. He has spent roughly 13 of those 27 years actively walking, with the rest lost to visa queues, bureaucratic walls, global crises, and the particular stubbornness required to refuse to quit when the whole world tells you to.
When people ask him why, he doesn't mention records. He doesn't talk about fame. He says it was a challenge. That it was hard. That no one had done it before. That one day in his twenties he drew a line on a map and felt something shift in his chest that never quite settled back into place.
And then he says something that stops most people cold.
In 27 years of walking through 25 countries, he says, 99.99% of every person he has ever met has shown him kindness. Strangers who fed him when he had nothing. People who opened their homes to him in the middle of the night. Locals who walked beside him for miles just to make sure he was safe.
The world, Karl Bushby says, is a far gentler place than the news would ever have you believe.
Somewhere in Europe right now, a man in worn-out boots is putting one foot in front of the other, moving west, carrying 27 years of steps and storms and small human kindnesses toward a front door he hasn't touched since the last century.
Almost home. Still walking.
If you know someone who is carrying something heavy right now and needs a reason to keep going — this one is for them.
Click to expand...
Walter Smith became manager in 1998, just saying.
 

Welcome

Join the Everton conversation today.
Fewer ads, full access, completely free.

→ Log in 🔑 Register
🛒 Visit Shop

Support Grand Old Team by checking out our latest Everton gear!
Back
Top