“I’ll be here,” says Angela Bushby, 75, scanning the room, which holds precious memories.

“I won’t be at the Channel Tunnel. I’ll be here, in Hull, waiting for him to walk through that gate, and once I’ve given him a hug I’ll tell him, ‘…and what time do you call this, Karl?'”

Angela’s son, Karl, left Chile in South America on 1 November 1998, with the aim of walking home, without using any transport; an expedition he thought would take 12 years.

Geopolitics, war and difficulty securing visas has stunted progress, but now, about to enter Austria, Karl and his family back home are preparing for the homecoming.

I am with Angela in the living room of her home on Hull’s Sutton Park estate. Karl’s childhood home.

Since 1998, she has seen her son just three times, including before he became the first Briton to cross the frozen Bering Strait between North America and Russia in 2006.

Sitting in her armchair, Angela glances up towards her son’s photographs and says: “He’s certainly given me a few sleepless nights, I can tell you. It’s a wonder I’m not white!”

She adds: “He’s still my little boy. Every mother thinks that, it doesn’t matter how they are or what they do.”

It was in this room that Karl outlined to Angela his plan for the Goliath Expedition, supported by his father, Keith, a former SAS soldier.

“I was gobsmacked when Karl told me what he planned to do,” says Angela, a retired packer at a snack food factory who is divorced from Keith.

In front of us, on a coffee table, rests a pile of family photographs. One picture stands out.

A fair-haired boy is preparing to climb a tree branch, as his brother steadies it. The older boy looks laser-focused.

“Karl has always been headstrong,” says Angela. “Once Karl puts his mind to something, he does it.”

On the wall are photographs of Karl and his brother, Adrian, who is two years younger than him, charting both of their Army careers.

Karl wears the maroon beret and “wings” of the Parachute Regiment.

One might be forgiven for thinking Karl has skipped, with ease, from one adventure to another.

“He didn’t have it easy,” she says, tapping the glass covering Karl’s pass-out parade photograph.

Karl, then a fit but slightly built teenager, needed several attempts to pass P Company, the pre-parachute selection and training unit of the British Army’s airborne force.

Grit and determination, combined with a desire to do himself and his family proud, saw him prevail, his mother says.

This front room is also where Angela consoled her son when he was targeted by school bullies at the local comprehensive.

“Karl was called thick and stupid,” she says. “He was neither. He had an awful time of it at school.”

Karl himself describes those years as “hell”.

“He was 13 when he was diagnosed with dyslexia,” says Angela, whose son is happy for her to share the details in the hope his story of triumph over adversity will help inspire others.

“Once he knew there was a reason for his struggles, he was off. There was no stopping him. He found ways to work around the condition, and came to love reading. He had to work really hard to get where he is.”

Angela has kept scrapbooks containing newspaper cuttings chronicling Karl’s journey.

To date, he has walked through South, Central and North America, as well as parts of Asia, before entering Europe.

In 2024, he swam 186 miles (300km) across the Caspian Sea to avoid having to enter Iran or Russia again, where he struggled to secure visas.

He is about to leave Hungary and enter Austria.

I ask Angela if she feels her son, given his family’s strong links to the military, was destined to have such an adrenaline-fuelled life.

“Not really,” she says. “He never caused me any problems when he was a kid. He’s always been lovely. Karl has always loved being outdoors.

“It was murder trying to get him back inside on a night. He loved to go bird-watching in the fields.”

Angela waves her arm towards the patio doors.

“He always wanted to be out there,” she says.

The fields – Karl’s stomping ground – have long disappeared; replaced by homes.

For Angela, the decades have brought a heady mix of pride and worry.

Her mind drifts back to April 2006, when news filtered through that Karl had reached Russia after 14 days walking across shifting plates of ice in temperatures reaching -30C (-22F)

“There was relief that he’d made it,” says Angela. “Just before he left Alaska, he asked to see his family in case anything happened to him. We all flew out there. He knew there was a very good chance he wouldn’t make it.

“I was at work when someone told me they’d heard on the radio that Karl had been arrested for entering Russia illegally. My heart dropped.”

Angela also recalls an occasion when Karl sampled a drink offered to him in South America.

Angela says: “Trees started to walk towards him and the sky didn’t look the same as it did before, apparently.

“When he told me, I went mad at him for trying it.”

Angela clearly misses her son dearly.

“At the start of the walk, I would get the occasional phone call,” she says. “These days, we tend to use Messenger.”

Angela has squirrelled away gifts for Karl.

“I’ve carried on buying him a Christmas present every year,” she says. “He will have quite a few to open! When I told him about it, he said, ‘Mother, you must be mad’.”

But it helps Angela.

She admits she worries about how Karl will settle back into society when he reaches home.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do,” she says wistfully. “Hopefully, he will end up here.”

Angela looks lost in thought.

“But I don’t think he will. I don’t think he will ever stay put in one place after travelling for so long.”

Later, on the phone, Karl gives me his reaction to his mother’s ‘what time do you call this?’ comment.

“That’s a truth bomb!” he replies.