An electronic diary, often daily, of her journey through Europe reveals an intelligent young woman, moved by what she is seeing and engaging, for the first time, in the big, wide world as an adult. It sheds a very different light from the one cast in recent days about supposed nights of binge-drinking and accusations of promiscuity.

As police attention swirled around Dubrovnik hostel manager Ivica Perkovic, he told the national daily, Jutarnji List, that none of the friends Britt Lapthorne was "travelling or partying with cared that she did not show up the morning afterwards in the hostel", and that "they thought she was that kind of person . . . you don't need to worry if she didn't turn up in the morning". Perkovic says his family had wanted to help and had asked other hotels she had visited about her: "They said that she was a very kind person, polite . . . maybe too open a person and also promiscuous." On the latter, her family, friends and her own diary indicate otherwise.

The photographs may show long nights of revelry, but that's the life of a twentysomething backpacker from any nation. Clubs, new friendships, late nights, booze. Yes, it's all there. But the days were something entirely different. They were full days, energetic days, they often covered huge distances and a number of countries in minuscule time frames.

Money was tight, phone calls home were always prefaced with "call me back" to keep a check on her mobile credit. But always, Lapthorne seemed to have good days. "Britt is in Viennnaaaaa!" she wrote gleefully on September 4.

The next day, she has already travelled 300 kilometres south and is splashing, kayaking and swimming in the bright blue waters of Lake Bled across the border in Slovenia: "Britt is in the best place she's seen in a while," she writes at 8.30 that night. The next day it is a few hours of rafting before a bus to Ljubljana, 80 kilometres south. On the 9th, she has already made it into Zagreb in Croatia.

On the 11th in Sarajevo in Bosnia, she exhibited an unusual flutter of nerves, a sign her parents said last week that showed she was careful and savvy about her safety. Her plans still up in the air, she wrote to her boyfriend, Simon Imberger: "Hey, just arrived in Sarajevo. So tired, took so long to get here on a dodgy, scary train ... aaaahhh.. but it was really OK! Just glad I made it!" Not long afterwards, she was wondering where to go next: Croatia or Montenegro. "Not too sure which one yet, just take it as it comes."

A flurry of photos followed: a birthday party in Sarajevo, the classic touristy shots around the streets of Ljubljana, all shot with her Canon PowerShot G9, which remains missing. What secrets could it reveal now?

Climbing on a mountain waterfall, a few nights of beer, new mates and frivolity and a three days later she is in Mostar, the biggest city in Herzegovina. "Drinking yummy coffee and never eating brains again," she laughs. That Monday, September 15, seemed special, waterlogged but it is high summer on the Dalmatian coast and the sunshine is hot, the seas and lakes cool: "Britt had the best day," she writes. "Jumping off cliffs into water, swimming under waterfalls and getting soaked in the rain."

In a message to her university friend Kate Houlihan, Lapthorne describes Mostar as "one of the best places I have been". It is in the picturesque city that she also meets Melburnian Brad Anderson who warns her about bad experiences he and others had had on the Croatian coast.

"We found the locals to be pretty unhospitable and we gave her a bit of a heads-up. We know of one person who woke up in a car (on a Croatian island) and didn't know where she was or how she'd got there," Anderson told The Age from London. In turn, Lapthorne shared with him the story about her scary train ride in the Balkans where she did not feel safe with people coming through her compartment. "She (Britt) had been travelling by herself and that part of Europe is not the safest area, so she was fairly wary and knew what to look out for," Anderson says. "She was definitely switched on."

It's a view supported by other friends and family. On her Facebook site Lapthorne writes that she could happily spend a few weeks in Mostar but southern Italy beckons still. She seeks information from a friend on a wall posting and after being told the best way across to the Adriatic coast of Italy is via the town of Split, she declares she is "off to Dubrovnik, Croatia!" as it is on the way.

It is 9am on September 16. By the time she arrives around 6pm on September 17 there are several messages waiting from friends on Facebook. "Well done Britt on posting heaps of pics of your travels, ur a very good traveller. Looks like ur having an awesome time!" says one mate.

"Missing you and getting greener with envy from all of your photos! Having fun? What's the plan for the next few weeks?" asks another. The 21-year-old never replied.

"Britt is in Dubrovnik, Croatia!" is her last post at 7.06pm. Chances are, that post was made from the hostel in Babin Kuk where she and at least eight other travellers were staying on a hill above the old town. Accounts by her fellow backpackers, as well as the testimony of the hostel owner, Milka Perkovic and her son, Ivica, show that the children cooked dinner, watched DVDs in the common room and at around midnight, headed off to the Latino Club Fuego just outside the Pile Gate of the citadel. Britt Lapthorne's roommate, a Russian girl who did not go out with the group, says she has only just heard she is missing. She remembers waking up to see Lapthorne hadn't returned but assumed it had been a long night.

Witnesses have placed her inside Club Fuego in the early hours of the Wednesday morning. A bouncer saw the young woman leave the club with five women and two men. Since then, there has been nothing, just a cold, frightening silence.

In Kate Houlihan's mind, there was no way her cautious friend would have got into a car with five women and two men, as some witnesses had suggested. "Even when she does drink she is always in control. She's not that type of girl, she's got a boyfriend. I find it very unconvincing that she would have got into a car with somebody she didn't know," Houlihan says. "If that's the case, there must have been some pressure."



SIMON Imberger had not heard from his girlfriend for 10 days when he messaged on September 21: "Hey Bee! Hope Dubtown's still rockin' & the bugs aren't as big. Keep laughing Tripthorne! xOx" Lapthorne had been gone already for four days. But Imberger and her family would not realise the dire situation for another four.

At the hostel, by day two, anxiety was mounting. Milka Perkovic told The Age that on the second night, she awoke at around 2am to check if Lapthorne was back. Her passport was in the safe at the hostel, her mobile phone and personal belongings were still there. Still, she was a traveller, having fun, she could have met a boy, be off somewhere: "My son said she is just a crazy kid, she will be back don't worry." Back in Australia, Lapthorne's regular phone calls had stopped. And her travelogue too. Her mother Elke Lapthorne's antennae started to respond to an anxiety: she wrote on September 22: "Hi Britt, missing your travelogue! Elke xxx."

Meanwhile her friend, Tara Reynolds, who has managed the website set up to trace travellers who may have information and now has 15,000 members, was also bewildered by the sudden silence: "Hi ya darling!!! Whats news!!! Still in Dubrovnik??? I plan to go next year so give me all the details. (OK ... not ALL, but is it a cool place to visit!!!???) ciao4now!" The following day, the penny seemed to have dropped: On September 24, Simon Imberger wrote: "PLEASE CONTACT ELKE LAPTHORNE or SIMON IMBERGER IF ANYONE HAS HEARD FROM BRITT LAPTHORNE!!!! VERY URGENT!!!"

Lapthorne's dad, Dale, says his daughter was a seasoned traveller but that this journey was one that was about more, much more than just partying. "She is of German extraction, her mum, Elke ... Britt said she wanted to see Auschwitz, I think that showed a great strength of character," he said. "She wanted to understand suffering, to see and really get a feeling for the places she was going. In Bosnia she said she wanted to understand what had happened there."

Imberger, 33, is adamant that Lapthorne was "conservative as" when it came to drinking. She was doing, he says, what so many young people want to do at her age - explore the world, see new places, adventure, really experience life. Reynolds says Lapthorne's choice of friends - older than her - "said a lot about her, more than that other stuff that has been said".

Dale Lapthorne and his son, Darren, are trying to hold up in the face of unimaginable frustration and silence. They are hammering away, asking questions, ruffling official feathers in Dubrovnik, demanding attention and refusing to simply give up. Last night, asked how he felt inside, he said his calm demeanour was show: "I'm shaking like a leaf. It is gut wrenching, every day. But there is no point in us falling in a hole. We just have to go on, for Britt." with Selma Milovanovic