A GLOBE-TROTTING great grandmother who circumnavigated the world more than ten times following her retirement has died.

Former nurse Christine Melville was given a colourful farewell from friends and family in a tribute to a free spirit who travelled the world in her 70s and 80s.

The “intrepid traveller” was still planning journeys to far-flung corners of the world while fighting cancer.

A funeral at Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton which celebrated her extraordinary life was held on Friday.

Christine moved to Woodingdean with her young family in 1960 but divorced and returned to nursing by the end of the decade.

After a long and distinguished career as a district nursing sister, she retired in 1991 and began a new adventure which would see her travel the globe over the next 23 years.

To avoid the “long, cold, dark first few months of the year”, daughter Penny said her mother would fly to the other side of the world at the first chance each new year.

Rather than “comfortable holidays” she would take three-month explorations throughout Australia and New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Fiji, Singapore, Canada, America and Europe.

Her travelling inspired a love of geology, taking a course in the subject at the University of Sussex while in her 70s, and marine life, for which she took a scuba diving course in freezing UK waters.

Penny said: “She had been around the world at least ten times and most of these trips were in her 70s and 80s.

“Most of these adventures were only loosely planned and totally solo.

“She would just land, pick up a car and then drive, working out her overnight stops along the way – often youth hostels and local B&Bs.

“She loved the freedom to change her plans at the last moment.”

Chemotherapy for the first six months of 2014 forced Christine to postpone a long-planned trip to explore South America but she still held out hopes of travelling once again while bravely battling cancer.

She died on May 16 at the age of 83 and is survived by five children, ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

She also contributed to her local community as a founding member and chairwoman of the local Women’s Institute, council member of the Sussex Downsmen Society and through her involvement with the local horticultural society and Friends of Woodingdean.