Just months from setting foot back in the UK, Karl Bushby has encountered a major obstacle on his 28-year walk around the world. Eurotunnel has officially refused his request to walk through the Channel Tunnel’s service tunnel to get back to England.
Eurotunnel said the service tunnel is a critical safety and maintenance route and that it cannot be closed for his crossing. The company said that allowing Bushby access would require lengthy operational disruptions and pose safety concerns for passenger services and essential maintenance work.
“We have carefully considered his request and explored a range of possible options. In this instance, regretfully, we are unable to accommodate Mr Bushby’s wishes,” a spokesperson for the company told the BBC. “Closing the Service Tunnel for a period of 15 hours, or over two days, would pose a safety risk to passenger services and impact essential maintenance work. Access is also tightly controlled, and any activity within it requires detailed planning and specialist support.“
The news that he cannot do this is disappointing but not entirely unexpected. The decision ends months of speculation over whether the Bushby would be able to use the tunnel to cross back into the UK and leaves him with a big decision to make.
“I’ve only just been told of the decision, and it’s early days. Clearly, my team will need to have conversations, but if I have to swim across the channel, then I am prepared to do that,” he said.
No transportation allowed, even a kayak
In May, Bushby finished walking through Germany and entered Belgium. When he reaches the French coast, he will have to find a way to cross from mainland Europe back into the UK. He has always known that using the tunnel was far from guaranteed and has been considering how else he could bridge this stretch of water on his own, without even a kayak. Swimming the Channel is an obvious solution, but not one Bushby is keen on. He does not particularly like swimming.
Swimming the English Channel would be an enormous undertaking, but it would not be the first time Bushby has had to resort to swimming as part of his Goliath Expedition. In 2024, he completed a 27-day, 288km swim across the Caspian Sea with Angela Maxwell.
The crossing was never part of his plan, but it allowed him to continue his journey. Having walked through Turkmenistan, he was unable to get a visa into neighboring Iran. Instead, he backtracked to Uzbekistan, trekked across the Kyzylkum Desert and then swam to Azerbaijan. He and Maxwell were supported by a safety boat and two Azerbaijani swimmers.
That swim joined a long list of unconventional solutions that have kept the expedition alive through nearly three decades of border closures, visa disputes, political tensions, and logistical dead ends. If no alternative arrangement can be reached with Eurotunnel, Bushby may once again find himself in the open water.
58,000km, 28 years of walking
Bushby began the Goliath Expedition in 1998, setting off from Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile with the ambition of walking home to Hull, England. The rules of his expedition are simple: He cannot use any form of transportation along his route and is not allowed to go home until he is finished.
He has covered over 58,000km across three decades. Bushby traversed the Americas, including the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, and crossed the Bering Strait to Siberia. He then spent years trying to cross Russia before heading into Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. In 2025, he hit a huge milestone: he was finally back in Europe. Though the English Channel is a significant barrier, he hopes to make it to Hull by September of this year.
