Grandmothers 5 year run around the world!

She's at a time of life when most women are relying on bracing country walks or a weekly swim for their exercise.

But yesterday a determined Rosie Swale-Pope set foot on British soil for the first time in almost five years since she set out on a 'Forrest Gump' style round-the-world run.

The 61-year-old has covered 20,000 miles on foot, enduring freezing temperatures, being held up by a naked axeman and brushes with bears and packs of wolves.

Camping by the side of the road in inhospitable locations including Siberia and Alaska, the mother-of-two says she was close to death on several occasions.

But yesterday she landed on the coast of Scotland to begin the final stint of her journey back to Tenby in Wales.

Raising money for cancer charities and an orphanage, she left home almost five years ago on a mission she hoped would finish two years later.

But showing not a hint of disappointment that her travels had taken slightly longer to complete, she said yesterday: 'You cannot overcome the weather and you cannot overcome yourself.

'It is just one of those things. Don't let anyone ever try to tell you that the world is small place - when you travel across it on foot you get to see how big it really is.'

Greeted by crowds of family and friends when she stepped off the morning boat to Scrabster in North Scotland, she said: 'It is just so wonderful to be back after all this time.

'I have had an amazing adventure but I have missed absolutely everything and it's so good see everyone again.

'I'm filled with huge excitement and joy because, at last, home is now on the horizon. It's just fantastic to be back in wonderful Great Britain.'

But despite all the dawn celebrations yesterday, the journey is not over yet, and Mrs Swale-Pope will resume her road run through Britain, down the west coast of Scotland, through Cumbria, Lancashire, Liverpool and Wales, aiming to be back in Pembrokeshire at the end of August - 1,789 days after she first set out to raise awareness of the cancer which killed her husband Clive in 2002.

Apart from sponsorship from equipment suppliers and gifts from well-wishers, she has funded most of the low-key expedition herself.

And although she has been treated to occasional nights in hotels and homes, her usual place of rest was a small tent where she fed on rations of bread, pasta, green vegetables, dried fish and fruit.

She has covered every mile of land on foot, carrying all her possessions in a backpack or by pulling a cart which doubles as a tent.

Yesterday she said of her travels: 'It has been an incredible journey and I have had some truly wonderful experiences along the way.

'But it has also been very, very difficult at some stages that there five or six times when I nearly died.'

The freezing winters spent in Siberia and Alaska were the toughest challenge, she explained.

'The temperatures get so low that everything freezes solid,' she said.

'And if you lose your concentration for just a little while you can be lost for good.

'The cold is frightening and you are always thinking about survival. It gets so cold that at the night-time you heart thumps so loudly that you cannot sleep.'

She continued: 'But I am lucky that I have been able to choose to do this. To be out in the wilderness, which can be very beautiful and extraordinary, is really wonderful.'

She describes herself as a 'slow marathon runner' and on a good day will try to clock up 15 miles.

Mrs Swale-Pope added: 'It has been a hard journey - I was held up by a naked mad man with an axe, had frostbite and have gone through 45 pairs of shoes, but it has all been worth it.'

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