'Forrest Gump' grandmother finishes incredible FIVE-YEAR run around the world

In that time she has suffered frostbite and double pneumonia. She has been hit by a bus, was almost swept to her death in a raging river and had to cope with fearsome bears and hungry wolves.

She has also been accosted by a drunken axeman in the woods. And received 29 marriage proposals.

Rosie Swale-Pope has returned to the UK and is looking forward to arriving back home in Tenby

But yesterday Rosie Swale-Pope was back in Britain.

The 61-year-old grandmother stepped off a boat at Scrabster in northern Scotland to begin the final leg of her journey home to Tenby in south-west Wales.

Greeted by family and friends, she said: 'It is wonderful to be back after all this time. I'm filled with huge excitement and joy because, at last, home is now on the horizon.'

On the home run: Rosie on her arrival in Scotland for the last part of her trek

The intrepid pensioner on her travels in Times Square, New York

She set off in October 2003, her purpose to raise money for cancer charities  -  she lost her husband Clive to prostate cancer in 2002  -  and an orphanage in Russia.

Her round-the-world run has taken her through England, Holland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and now to Scotland.

She has covered every mile of land on foot, pulling her possessions in a cart.

Although she has been treated to occasional nights in hotels and homes, her usual place of rest has been a small tent, while her diet has consisted mainly of bread, vegetables and dried fish.

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

The winters in Siberia and Alaska were the toughest challenge, she said. ' The temperatures get so low that everything freezes solid. If you lose your concentration for just a little while you can be lost for good.'

Mrs Swale-Pope, who has two children, James, 37, Eve, 39, and two grandchildren, is a seasoned adventurer who sailed solo across the Atlantic in 1983.

But her epic run brought a number of alarming surprises.

'In Greenland I was walking in a snowstorm when I suddenly saw two black eyes, then a nose and some teeth and I realised it was a polar bear.

It was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.'

Rosie, pictured near the village of Khilok, Buryatia, Eastern Siberia, Russia

She also encountered grizzly bears and coyotes and was followed by wolves in Siberia.

'With the bears, I had to show that I was strong because you can't show fear,' she said. 

The 61-year-old is drawing close to the finale of her five-year trek

She was hit by a bus on a road in Siberia after becoming disorientated by a bout of pneumonia.

'It wasn't the driver's fault and the doctors told me it was just as well he had hit me, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to treat the pneumonia.

'Another time in Siberia I was trying to cross a river when I got hit by a log and washed downstream  -  everything blacked out but somehow I managed to catch a branch.

'It took me two days to walk back upstream to where I'd left my provisions. Looking back, I shudder at some of the danger I was in.'

Another nasty moment in Siberia came when a drunken man ran towards her with a blood-stained axe.

It turned out he had been drinking vodka with friends nearby and cut his own hand on the axe.

'They simply hadn't seen a woman camping alone in the forest before and wanted me to join them. They even left a gift of bread for me the next day.'

Of the marriage proposals, nine came in Poland. More followed in Siberia. All were gently declined.

'They were very flattering and a lovely compliment  -  especially when I was wearing icicles for earrings and had a face blackened from the soot of my stove,' she said.

The only break in her odyssey was brief trip to Ireland from America to attend her daughter's wedding last year.

Now Mrs Swale-Pope hopes to be home by the end of August.

She says she is looking forward to a glass of red wine  -  and a bath.