I will walk 36,000 miles... if the French let me!

Ex-paratrooper Karl Bushby set out to traverse the globe on foot in 1998. Having survived jail, run-ins with armed guerrillas and polar bears, he has one challenge left ...getting permission to cross the Channel Tunnel

- Richard Ashmore

KARL Bushby has a big grin on his bearded face. "I often have to remind people, I started this in the last century," he says about his incredible 36,000-mile trek from the tip of South America to all going well - his mum's house in Yorkshire next year.

The former paratrooper has been on a one-man mission to walk without the aid of mechanised transport from the mountainous wilderness of Patagonia to his home city of Hull since he set off in 1998. For a staggering 27 years, Karl, now aged 56, has trudged along at around 3mph for 18 miles a day, traversing scorched desert highways, sweltering jungles and treacherous ice roads in a real-life journey to rival the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

And just like the book's principal character Frodo Baggins, Karl's quest has been a "dangerous business" at times, including run-ins with heavily armed Marxist guerrillas, Russian secret service agents and polar bears...more of which to follow.

But despite facing terrors that would stop most people in their tracks, the stoic Yorkshireman has taken every obstacle in his stride, armed with an "absolutely bullet proof" mindset instilled by his training in the British Army.

Some of his challenges have been practical. For instance, he must spend 90 out of every 180 days outside of the EU to navigate the European visa system, a similar problem he previously encountered in Russia.

And now, with 1,100 miles left to go, having made it as far as Hungary, Karl is waiting to hear if French officials will grant him permission to walk through the Channel Tunnel via a service route.

If they refuse, he will need to swim the 21 miles across the Channel instead.

"It would be pretty miserable if it was a no," he admits. "Even the Russians let me through, despite world tensions."