A display on Ms Von Willcox’s trip is now being created at the Augusta Museum, after the monumental trip was completed in 2008 at the Broadway Pier in San Diego.

When she started from Augusta on August 16, Ms Von Willcox was 49 years old and planned to walk 17km a day across Australia and then across other countries.

The survivor of “teenagers, a 12-year battle with cancer, and a 53 foot fall in Nepal”, she was ready for a new challenge.

Armed with a small trolley and a camera, she covered hundreds of kilometres although the trip came to a temporary halt after she was hit by a vehicle on an Australian road.

She said she believed this was the only mode of travel that would allow her to really meet people and experience different cultures.

As described on her current website, Ms Von Willcox “the Photo Gypsy” took a computer, printer, photographic equipment, a solar panel, and a Global Positioning System tied in to five satellites to keep her in touch with the world.

She also took a teddy bear to carry the message of tolerance and sharing to these younger generations.

“I’ve been to the base camp of Mount Everest 17,700 feet, hiked Mt Kilimanjaro, co-guided canoe trips in the Boundary waters between the US and Canada for Outward Bound groups, taken disabled people on the Yukon River for 25 days, and slept with lions just feet away in the Great Serengeti Plains of Africa,” she said on her website.

“I have visited over 50 countries, and only one Sheraton Hotel.”