Race against time to save epic world walk

Yorkshireman Karl Bushby has walked some 18,000 miles across South America, the US and Canada, crossing into Russia by walking across the frozen Bering Strait.

However, the Siberian leg has been bogged down since visa regulations were tightened. He only has three months at a time in the country before he has to leave.

That has left the former Royal Marine, from Sutton in Hull, with no option but to live as cheaply as possible elsewhere and that has driven him to the village of Melaque on the Pacific coast of Mexico, where he is living a hand-to -mouth existence.

He and his father Keith are hoping the Russian authorities grant him a special dispensation which will allow him to walk for a year when he returns.

After a request from North Hull MP Diana Johnson, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office contacted the visa department at the British embassy in Moscow in October asking them to bear in mind the "extraordinary circumstances" of Mr Bushby's journey.

But there's been no result yet and the clock is ticking away.

The area he needs to cross is full of marshland and fast-flowing rivers and is practically impassable on foot beyond April. Because of the rules of his journey he cannot use a boat.

Mr Bushby's father Keith, who lives in Hereford and is the lynchpin of the expedition, said there were politicians in Russia who could step in, but the problem was getting hold of them.

He said: "There are lot of people in Russia who could say that's a reasonable thing - but you have to get to those people.We just haven't got a contact over there who can put us in touch with someone who looks favourably at the expedition.

"The difficult half is out of the way – there were three main obstacles, the Darien Gap, the Bering Strait and the English Channel. Really there are no physical obstacles now, it's only bureaucratic. He could walk out of that area in a few months over a winter period and that would put him back onto a road system."

Mr Bushby said the recession had made it "almost embarrassing" to approach companies for sponsorship, but remained phlegmatic: "It's just another crisis. We lurch from crisis to crisis.

"People think he is on holiday, he's not, he's trying to survive

without spending any money."

In recent months Mr Bushby has had to defend himself against online critics who accuse him of "just sitting around on beaches in Mexico". Mr Bushby who's been getting by doing odd jobs, admitted to having days of despair and feeling as if he is "balancing on the edge of a cliff".

Writing on the Odyssey website he said: "Right now the obstacle I face on this odyssey is not a river crossing, a stretch of jungle or desert, it's a marketing, political and financial obstacle. Such is the changing nature of this game."

But he insists: "The truth is, this can be a brutal game and not everyone can play. I can."

He says world events have cast a shadow over his journey and he keeps a wary eye on the strained relations between Russia and the west: "As before these global concerns at first sight would appear to have little or nothing to do with my little issues. But like the economic crisis last year, it had a surprisingly direct effect."