On this day – 6th October

When Jason Lewis started his epic journey in July 1994 he was 26 and John Major was Prime Minister. When he walked the last mile of the 46,505 he covered, striding to the Greenwich Observatory pulling his pedal-boat Moksha, Lewis was 40 and Gordon Brown was PM. He had been absent throughout the Blair years and then some.

Without using engine-power or even sails Lewis had circumnavigated the globe in 13 years, 2 months, 24 days. His original plan was to take three and a half years, but small things like a crocodile attack, blood-poisoning, muggings, being arrested as a spy, depression, and having both legs broken when a drunk driver ran into him stretched the timescale a bit.

The Catterick -born adventurer crossed the Atlantic by pedal-boat; roller-bladed across the USA; continued to Australia via Hawaii under pedal-power again; kayaked from Oz to Singapore then biked it to the Himalayas which he crossed on foot; pedal-power again got him across the Indian Ocean, as it did the Channel after biking and hiking across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

And what had he missed most? Apparently warm beer and the British sense of humour.

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