Seized by armed police in Russia and threatened with deportation back to the UK, Karl Bushby must have thought his record-breaking attempt was over. Having only covered 17,000 miles in his quest to walk around the world - just less than halfway - the former paratrooper faced being flown back to his home town of Hull and starting from scratch.
But Mr Bushby now appears to have been given new hope, from two rather unlikely sources. In an interview with the Guardian, the 36-year-old said that the Chelsea football club owner, Roman Abramovich, prompted by John Prescott, had been working behind the scenes to get his walk back on track.
Mr Bushby began walking seven years ago, starting from the southernmost tip of Chile and aiming for home via Russia and Europe. He had crossed the treacherous swamps of Panama, known as the Darien Gap, gone north across all of the Americas, and even crossed the perilous floes of the Bering Strait, becoming the first Briton to do so.
But on April 1 he was arrested by border guards for entering Russia illegally. A court later ruled that he should be deported back to Alaska and be banned from returning to Russia for five years. It seemed to spell the end to his hopes for a record-breaking venture.
Yesterday, in the first interview with a British newspaper since his arrest, Mr Bushby described his daring walk across the Bering Strait and said "there was a general feeling of optimism" that an appeal ruling by the court, due to be heard this morning, would allow him to continue his walk through Russia.
"There's been some wheeling and dealing behind the scenes," he said from a flat in Anadyr, capital of Chukotka, the far-eastern region of which Mr Abramovich is the influential governor. "The verdict -'you're being deported' and what-not - was ridiculous. Abramovich's aides in Moscow have been having words and seeing if they can smooth things over, and it appears that everybody's willing to play ball. I'd heard one of [my] local MPs, John Prescott, had a word with Abramovich."
A source close to the deputy prime minister said Mr Prescott was "bothered" about Mr Bushby's plight and it was likely that he had phoned Mr Abramovich. A spokesman for the Chukotka administration said he thought Mr Bushby would be allowed to continue his walk.
Mr Bushby will have to fly back across the Bering Strait to Alaska to get a new visa and supplies. He will then fly to the Russian port Provideniya, the usual entry point on the eastern coast, before continuing from the tiny coastal village of Uelen where he and Dimitri Kieffer, an American and fellow explorer, with whom he crossed the strait, were arrested more than a month ago.
For the first time Mr Bushby described his 15-day trek across the Bering Strait, during which he twice feared he would die. The pair had entered the sea off the Alaskan coast. "We donned our dry suits, got in and pulled our sledges. The water's freezing, but it's still the warmest place." They found at one point the ice was "a bit like a slush puppy - crushed ice in water".
He added: "Progress was very slow and we were moving at two miles an hour. The environment was bizarre. It's incredibly vast, like a car park half full of water where bust-up cars and buses are stacked two or three deep and then covered in snow. Then you have to try and pull a couple of sleighs over it."
The ice was moving quickly north, and over two days their GPS indicators showed they had moved 50 miles north but hardly at all in the necessary direction, west.
At night, they would find a stable piece of ice and rest. "It was then the usual tent routine: you heat your food, get in your [sleeping] bags, and then lie there, wide-eyed, listening to the ice grinding below you."
When he swam among the large chunks of ice, there was a danger of being crushed between two moving mini-icebergs, he said.
He said that his father, Keith, back in Hereford, had given them up-to-date readouts on the condition of the ice ahead using internet satellite images. At one point there were 10 to 20 miles of open water ahead, causing Karl to fear they might need to turn back.
It became very cold then and, back on ice, they stopped drifting north. "At this stage the ice behind us was breaking up, but in front of us it was looking good."
But with the Russian coast still 20 miles away they were not making progress fast enough and began ditching food and heavy equipment. This strategy limited the time they could keep going. "It was five days, and that would be it. If the fuel and food ran out, we were pretty much buggered."
The weather came to their rescue when the wind dropped. They ditched more equipment and were able to cover 12 miles in one day, arriving just metres from the Russian coastline. "The following morning, we walked a couple of yards - and there it was, Russia."
Through the mist they first saw a disused early-warning station. "It was like something out of Mad Max, and the last thing we wanted to see. We'd just crawled out of the Bering Sea into a sensitive [military] site."
He said that their unauthorised entry into Russia, for which they were arrested, was the last thing on their mind at the time; they had wanted just to reach the country then sort out the passport formalities later. Armed police escorted them to the security services, the FSB, for interrogation, then they were allowed to stay in a flat offered by a local priest.
Mr Bushby described his subsequent court appearance as "a bit of a farce", with some translation problems. "Only several days later we were able to work out what everybody was talking about."