By Meg Clothier
Moscow - A British adventurer's bold bid to walk around the world got back on track on Friday when a Russian court cancelled an expulsion order against him.
Border guards stopped former paratrooper Karl Bushby and American comrade Dimitri Kieffer on April 1 on the remote Chukotka peninsula after a perilous two-week journey across the sea ice bridge between Russia and Alaska.
A court then ruled they would have to leave Russia after failing to get their passports stamped - threatening to put a bureaucratic end to Bushby's bid to follow an unbroken route on foot from the tip of South America back home to Britain.
Anyone deported from Russia is usually barred from returning for five years, but Bushby and Kieffer won on appeal.
"The court is maintaining a fine of $75 (about R495) for each foreigner, but has cancelled the decision to deport them. They can now continue their journey," Interfax quoted a court official as saying.
Bushby began his 60 000km trek in 1998.
"It's a vast relief for Karl to have this lifted off his shoulders. And it's a decision that'll do everyone a bit of good," his father Keith told Reuters by telephone from Britain.
"It's a bit of cheap PR for Russia. The first decision reinforced Cold War stereotypes, this one chips away at that image," he added.
Karl plans to recover equipment that was impounded and then return to Alaska to regroup and restock, his father said.
He will then return to Russia when the onset of winter freezes the ground, making the journey south easier, to pick up his adventure from the point where he was first stopped.
Karl made light of his journey.
"A soldier in wartime - that's a hero. Somebody who risks their life to help others - also a hero. We're not heroes, we're just good sportsmen," he said in comments reported in Russian by news agency Itar-Tass.
The Bushby family hope they have won the support of the governor of the Chukotka region, Roman Abramovich, better known as Russia's richest man and the billionaire owner of London soccer club Chelsea.
"We've spoken to Mr Abramovich's representatives and they did say they were willing to help out for the rest of the trip through the region," Keith said.