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Karen's journey came to an undignified halt at a campsite in the middle of nowhere just 700 kilometers short of Nova Scotia.

"I'd been struggling for a few weeks. After catching pneumonia in Toronto I never really got my strength back but I was so determined to try and get across the whole of Canada then down to New York. I pushed myself on and on but most days my lungs felt as if they were going to collapse. It felt as if I couldn't get enough air into them and my throat was stuffed with cotton wool."

"By the time I reached Montreal I started to feel better and my hopes rose again of making it down to New York. Autumn was rapidly settling in and the nights were getting cold, I'd have to get a move on. It had only seemed like yesterday that I was sweating my way through the prairies. By now my left foot was becoming completely dead after just 30 minutes on the bike. I couldn't feel it at all from the ankle down and then the feeling started to creep further up my leg to almost my knee. I was now limping everywhere and even on days off the pain wouldn't go away. Talking of knees, they hurt too!"

"I told Ryan, who I'd cycled across Canada with, to go on ahead. There was no point in him not making it across the country. He had a plan to get his campervan from his brother Scott who would drive up, 4,500 kilometres from Colorado, meet him then come and find me. I could then, at least, put the bags in the van and cycle to New York unloaded."

"The strength I got, as always, to carry on from the Tibetans I'd met in Montreal would surely keep me going, wouldn't it?"

Everyday I had a fight with myself to get back on the bike, just a bit more, today might be better, might be pain free. Everyday I woke up in the hope I could manage more than the day before but try as I might I was struggling to reach 70 kilometres a day, then 50, then 30. I pushed to the back of my mind thoughts I just didn't want to face, that this might be the beginning of the end. No! I could do it, I could. I'd got this far, Just hang on until Ryan gets here, then it will be easier.

"And so it was at a campsite in L'Islet sur Mer that I had to face facts, I just couldn't carry on. I was not just in pain from my foot but mentally and physically exhausted. I missed my family too and had done so for months. Was there any point in doing myself irreparable damage? I was only about a third of the way around what I want to achieve, I'd be no use to anyone if I half killed myself and I didn't want to push myself to the point where I had ME so badly again I'd be bedridden."

"Still clinging on to hope, the hope that had got me through ME, on a bike across 13 countries and 17,000 kilometres. I just wanted to cry, I didn't want to give up, admit defeat. I rang Scott to see when he might be able to fetch me. He hadn't even left America! I calculated 10 days stuck in the campsite, nearly 50 kilometers from the nearest store and me, unable to cycle even 30. My gas ran out. My food ran out. My hope ran out. For 2 depressing days I lay in my tent staring at the ceiling. It was the only way to keep warm; it was freezing outside and raining torrentially. We were being hit by the tailend of a hurricane. Another 8 days like this and I'd be a basket case!"

"The night of the 4th October was the last and the worst of the entire trip! To pass time I listened to my CD player until the batteries went flat. I scratched about trying to find something to eat and found a mangled old cereal bar, and a banana about to explode, at the bottom of one of my bags. Trying to sleep with a growling stomach in the freezing cold was useless but I must have dozed off for a while."

"Around 2am I woke up so cold I could barely move. My back and lungs were killing me, freezing. Pneumonia again? I sat up and lifted my mattress, there was a pool of icy water under me. I had been lying in about an inch of rain. There was nothing else for it. I had to force myself out of the tent, pull everything out and run back and forth to the laundry room. Everything was soaked. I battled in the rain and the gale to pull the tent down. I just felt like letting it go, one less thing to worry about. Looking back now I have to laugh, I'd spent my first day on the bike and now my last, wallowing around in mud!"

"After spending the night washing and drying everything I packed up early to cycle back to the next large town for the bus back to Montreal. It took 3 times longer than normal to battle my way back against a ferocious headwind. I shook my fist at the sky and swore. I must have looked like a mad woman to anyone passing. This wasn't how it was supposed to end! I wanted tickertape and trumpets down 5th avenue, not this!"

"On the bus I tried in vain to stay awake to watch the last of Canada that I would see go by but couldn't keep my eyes open. I had so wanted to see Nova Scotia and all the trees in autumn. I just wanted to cry again. I closed my eyes and tried to swallow the lump in my throat."

"Back in the warmth of Tenzins house I ate everyone's dinner and fell asleep early evening. The following day Tenzin was helping me try and find a flight back to Jersey. I had expected a few days to get my head around the fact the trip had ended (for the moment) and I would be seeing my family again for the first time in 26 months. There was a flight that night! There was a mad scrabble to pack and when it came to saying goodbye to everyone I thought I would cry, again!"

We had a long drive to the airport, about 80km. Interestingly enough Tenzin was the only person to ask me what I'd learnt. "Patience, the patience of a saint! Compassion I hope, and what an amazing, beautiful world we live in. I'd never have got as far as I have without all the kind, honest, generous people there are in the world. People like you."

I told him I was glad I'd had ME, been sick. It had made me take a long hard look at my life, which I doubt I would otherwise have done. It had set me on the most amazing path of my life.

I hugged Tenzin goodbye, nearly bursting into tears for the umpteenth time in the last few days. I still had 2 hours to kill until the flight. I sat and thought about all the people I had met on the trip. Thousands. I wished I could put them all together to say goodbye and thank you.

Flying over Jersey my first thought was how small it looked, the second, how long would it take for me to go mad? Last out of the arrival's hall and into the arms of my family I finally burst into tears. All the built-up emotion caught up with me.

Back in Jersey I bump into many people who say "Well done, we didn't think you'd make it outside France. When I ask them why they say they didn't think I was fit enough. I tell them what I told everyone before I started, fitness has nothing to do with it. If you believe you can do something, you can do it.

"So" they ask me, "is that you finished?"

"Finished! I haven't even started!"

"When I was really ill with ME and told people one day I'm going to cycle the world, I could almost hear them thinking, there there dear take another valium! Perhaps now, I'll be taken seriously!"

Latest news update:

Karen has recently been diagnosed with Plantar Fasciitis of her left foot.

See: http://www.ourfootdoctor.com/yourfeet_plantarfasciitis.shtml

This is a painful foot condition where the nerves running from the heel to the ball of the foot become inflamed. It is painful to walk on and when the heel hits the ground a shooting pain runs along the foot. To compensate for this the foot ends up rolling.

“My entire foot feels as if it is going to snap in half.”

Karen's Achilles tendon is also inflamed. She is now having many sessions with a physiotherapist and sadly been advised not to cycle for the moment.

“It would be an utter impossibility anyway. I can walk only a few hundred yards before my foot hurts. It throbs the entire time and I had to give up my job as standing all day was compounding the problem. I haven't cycled since September 2003 and miss the bike terribly.

I am not going to give up on the cycling but there is no point in me hurting myself further. I am no good to anyone if I do. I am hoping to get better this year and continue cycling next year, around April. I am going to spend this year saving and trying to write a book about my trip so far. That is actually proving harder than the cycling!”