SALES adviser Kristianne Edmondson told today how she played cards with an armed robber and ended up in dangerous Harlem -- on the trip of a lifetime!

The 31-year-old has just returned from a 29,000-mile round the world trip and is back behind a desk after taking a year off.

Kristianne, who works at Barratt's Regent Park development, Lower Darwen, said despite one or two unusual events, it was still a not-to-be-missed opportunity.

Kristianne and best friend Sharnie Hancox arrived in Canada in time to witness the Calgary stampede, before heading off to Niagara Falls, New York and Washington.

They hired a car and did a "Thelma and Louise" across America, taking in Florida and Las Vegas.

Kristianne said: "We had a lot of thrills and some scares, like when we hitch-hiked across Canada and found ourselves playing poker on an overnight greyhound bus with a man who had just completed a prison sentence for armed robbery. "Or when we arrived in New York at 4am which nowhere to stay and ended up in Harlem."

After the USA it was off to New Zealand, where they visited the north and south islands and went white-water rafting and deep-sea game fishing. They even had a go at sky-diving, leaping out of a plane from 12,000ft.

While in New Zealand, Kristianne met up with a cousin she had never seen and had always wanted to meet.

In Australia she and her companion worked in a Sydney hotel during the millennium celebrations and learned to scuba dive on the east coast, later travelling to the west coast in a camper van, visiting Ayers Rock en-route.

Kristianne, of Preston, said she didn't mind being back at work in Lower Darwen, but her trip had changed her outlook on life.

She said: "People think it is a big thing to sell your car, mortgage your flat, pack up your clothes and go, but it's not. I don't think I could ever be a regular tourist ever again.

"The best thing about travelling is the people you meet and the freedom. It makes you realise you've got to make the most of life while you can."

Picture: Kristianne with some of the places she visited on her round the world trip: (top) Calgary, (middle) The White House in Washington DC and (bottom) Syndey, Australia.