A couple from the Isle of Man made a 400-mile round trip at the weekend to pick up their wandering cat who hitched a lift in the back of a Tavistock man’s van.

Liz and Paul Skillicorn were delighted to be reunited with three-year-old Dusty at a cattery near Tavistock, after taking a ferry across the Irish Sea last Friday and then travelling down by road.

Arriving mid morning on Saturday, they picked up their adventurous feline from a cattery at Kit Hill, near Gunnislake.

Liz said that at first Dusty ‘wasn’t too impressed’ when they were shown into her room at the cattery. “She came out and stretched and glared at me, as if to say what are you doing here? Then when she woke up she gave me and my husband cuddles. We brought her harness to we could take her for a walk at the service station on the way back.

“When we got her home the kids were ecstatic to see her – we have six between us. She was so happy.”

She said the cattery at Kit Hill ‘couldn’t believe” how far Dusty had travelled. “They were laughing and saying ‘she is such a clever cat, she has worked out how to open doors’ by because Dusty was jumping up on the door handles.”

The restless cat was originally discovered by Tavistock man Tommy Bird, who had been on the Isle of Man for the famous TT Races, who was greeted by his unexpected passenger on arriving back home in Tavistock.

He contacted Dusty’s owners in Strang near Douglas on the Isle of Man via her Facebook page ‘Dusty’s Adventures’ which has 20,000 followers.

Then, having to go off for to the Glastonbury Festival for work, he transferred Dusty to the care of Westmoor Vets in Tavistock, who billeted her at the cattery just over the border in Cornwall.

Back on the Isle of Man, locals raised £1,000 to help the Skillicorns bring Dusty home.

“Dusty goes awol quite a lot on the island,” said owner Liz. “We live on the estate beside Noble’s Hospital and she basically lives in the hospital. She wanders the corridors, she sits in the cafeteria and she goes into A&E while people are waiting to be seen and sits on their laps. She also goes in the ambulances. She is well-known for wandering.”

Liz explained: “A man called Tommy Bird had come to the TT Races – a lot of people come up every year. He was taking the tents down and had been on the island for a while. He was aware of Dusty wandering around and she had been sleeping on his dashboard.

“Then we got a message from him to say that she had snuck into the van without him realising and had gone all the way home with him. He said ‘I think I’ve got your cat.’ And I said ‘I’ll come and get her’, and he said ‘I live in Tavistock’ I said ‘where’s that?’ He said Devon!”

“Everyone loves her on the island and wants her back. I have had so many messages from people.”