WHEN Margaret Davies left her Essex home in September, she told her parents not to expect her back until after Christmas. They thought nothing of it.

The elderly couple had grown accustomed to their 39-year-old daughter disappearing to the far corners of the globe for months at a time, and they looked forward to hearing about her intrepid adventures when she returned.

However, this time there were no impressive tales of surviving alone in harsh and wild conditions.

The Cambridge geography graduate was found by two shepherds emaciated and semi-conscious in a remote bothy on Kearvaig Beach, Cape Wrath, the most north-westerly tip of Scotland, last Thursday, suffering from hypothermia.

Ms Davies was airlifted to hospital in Stornoway but died on Saturday. In the desolate cottage, used mainly as a shelter for hikers caught in severe weather, police found a manuscript, addressed to a publisher, and other philosophical scribblings on the back of an envelope.

Police refused to reveal the nature and contents of the manuscript, although it is thought to be a novel rather than a diary.

Yesterday, her mother Wendy, 67, a retired teacher, said her daughter had taken a coach to Inverness at the end of September and then walked the 100-plus miles to Cape Wrath, stopping along the way to write.

Mrs Davies said her daughter was a very deep thinker who liked to experience hardship.

''She wanted to experience first hand what it was like to be alone, without people,'' she said.

''She was not lonely. She did not feel lonely. She obviously set herself a task. She was a geographer, she had a compass, and all the equipment. She had experience of the wildest places.''

She said her daughter, who lived with her parents in their secluded bungalow home in woods in Danbury, had camped in the wild Yukon in Canada, visited Alaska, Nepal, and Israel, and stayed with a family in the poorest parts of Bangladesh.

Mrs Davies said that, like all parents, she and her husband worried greatly about their daughter while she was away, but had got used not to hearing from her for several months at a time.

''She liked to experience hardships. She did actually like the cold. I think she was camping on the beach. She had left a note at the bothy saying she was on the beach, running out of food, and asking for help. I think she was trying to catch seafood as she had a hook.

''She obviously went back to the bothy and couldn't go further. Perhaps she thought she had more chance of being found at the bothy. She probably misjudged the situation. She was a very deep thinker, more so than anyone I know. She despised money, but she was very thoughtful of others.''

As a teenager, Ms Davies had suffered osteomyelitis, an infectious disease of the bones, which left her with hip inflammation and a bad limp.

However, it did not deter her from her adventures. She had worked as a crew cook on a fishing boat in the Bering Strait, visited India, and even attempted to work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. While at university, she took up gliding and dinghy sailing.

Her parents said she often lost a lot of weight during her journeys.

While at home, they said she would spend time writing and sending manuscripts off to publishers, but would seldom stay at home long enough to deal with the replies.

In addition to her writing, Ms Davies, who had two brothers and two sisters, was a keen artist. She had exhibited in Chelmsford, Essex, and is listed on the Axis website, a data base of contemporary artists.

On the website, she states that while she occasionally paints landscapes, most of her work is imaginative.

''My aim is to make a statement about the human condition whether on an emotional, psychological, sociological, or philosophical level,'' she states.

In one of her paintings, called Road To Dunblane, she explains that the work is a ''sociological comment on many people's lives today, particularly in the city''.

Ms Davies studied geography at Newham College, Cambridge, between 1982 and 1985. Lady Lucy Adrian, a supervisor in the geography department, said she remembered Ms Davies well.

''She was extremely intelligent and an extremely loyal member of the college,'' she said.

''She was determined and independent-minded and made a great impression on me. She was a very outside person . . . I have received postcards from her from many distant places.''

Police and Ms Davies's father, Richard, a retired chartered surveyor, dismissed any suggestions that she may have been involved with a bizarre religious cult called Breatharianism, which encourages members to live on light alone.

A spokeswoman from Northern Constabulary said: ''It's pure speculation. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that she was involved in this cult.''

Mr Davies, 71, said: ''She would have nothing to do with anything like that. She was her own person and a very strong character.

''She used to disappear and go to all these places and we used to find out she had been helping out in schools in the wildest places, teaching and doing things for nothing for people.''

Mrs Davies said the family were considering sending their daughter's latest manuscript to a publisher.

In the remote Highland community, there is still a sense of shock and disbelief about what happened.

John Ure, one of the coastguards in Cape Wrath, estimated that Ms Davies had been there for about two weeks. ''Everyone is feeling really sad for her family.''

Danish-born Lottie Glob, a sculptor in Durness, said: ''No-one really knows exactly what happened. It's just guesswork. She might just have got ill and run out of food. I don't sense that she went there to commit suicide. It just seems like really, really bad luck for her.''

A post-mortem examination, initially scheduled for Monday, was being carried out last night.