Young Thwaites Brow wom-an Caroline Sugden gets her adventurous spirit from her mother Rita.

Rita, a retired doctors' receptionist, joined the Women's Royal Air Force at the age of 17. She took Caroline and her older brother and sister on holidays abroad long before foreign travel was as commonplace as it is now.

"She got the travel bug from being really young," says Rita, who used to leave her husband Kevin behind when she took the children away.

Caroline, 25, has been travelling around Australasia, the South Pacific and the USA for two years. And having not seen her in that time, the Sugdens hope their daughter is on her way home at last. "We miss her like mad," they say.

Caroline was educated at Swire Smith Middle School, Long Lee, and South Craven School. Then she took a BTEC course in travel and tourism at Skipton's Craven College.

She went on to work at Briggs and Hill travel agents in Keighley and at the town's Sunwin Travel, spending six months of the year in France as a tour representative. "It was bad enough not seeing her for six months at a time," says her mother.

Two years ago Caroline changed her plans to go to university to study travel and decided instead to join a group of friends from Skipton who were going to Australia for a year. They left late in 1996.

Only Caroline and her partner Pete Normington, from Nantwich, Cheshire, remain from the original group. One went on to Canada and the others returned to this country.

But Caroline and Pete managed to get their stay in Australia extended until February this year, when they moved on to New Zealand. Both have taken temporary jobs to help pay their way, Caroline doing such things as hotel reception work and chamber-maid duty.

In Australia she and her companions travelled to Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne and Adelaide, visiting Ayers Rock and other destinations. She has been bungee jumping, gone water skiing and tried motor biking. "She was a dainty little girl like a fairy and here she is doing all these daring things," says Mr Sugden, who works part-time for Oakworth insulation company Enclad. "She doesn't get her sense of adventure from me!"

Caroline keeps her parents well informed about her travels, sending photographs and letters and telephoning regularly.

Mr Sugden says: "She has had a wonderful time and even found an opal when she went down a mine. She is the jammiest person you can find."

Caroline and Pete spent Christmas in Fiji, before travelling on to the USA where they are now visiting friends. "We're hoping she's on her way home," says her mother. "But you never know with Caroline. We know it will be an anti-climax and wonder how she'll ever settle down."

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