The four-year-old escaped from a paddock near Goole, after being bought in Thirsk last June.

She was separated from her latest calf at the sale and probably went looking for it, according to cattle experts.

In July, she was seen at Thorne, near Doncaster, about 10 miles from Goole as the crow flies and much further than a cow usually walks. Later, she was reported at Keadby, west of Scunthorpe, having wandered at least another 10 miles. Then she wandered halfway back again and settled at Ealand, south of Crowle, in North Lincolnshire.

Dealer John Parish of Overton, near York, bought the animal at Thirsk for a retired farmer who wanted some cattle for his paddock on the edge of Goole. It escaped on its first night there.

Mr Parish and the owner's family kept chasing tip-offs about the cow but then it "seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth".

But earlier this year, reports of a mysterious lone cow reached two animal lovers, Tracey Jaine, who runs a smallholding at Crowle, and Sue McAuley, a college clerk in Ealand.

They fed the animal, named her Floss, traced Mr Parish and helped him capture her and take her back to Goole. But then they raised £500 to buy her for an animal sanctuary in Norfolk, where she was taken last Friday.

Mr Parish said yesterday: "The owner paid about that in the first place and it cost about the same in vet's bills and so on to get her back.

"He is 87 and I think he was glad to see the whole thing end happily."

Mike Keeble, a cattle-ring commentator for the Great Yorkshire Show, said: "It's not unusual for a cow to refuse to be captured for quite a long time and a Highlander can survive on next to nothing but I'm amazed at the journey this one has made."