Every day for six weeks Mrs Tracey drove from her home in Lithgow to board the Bathurst Radiation Bus Service at Daffodil Cottage and then travel to Orange for treatment.

The days were long and physically exhausting, especially for someone undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Once a week, Mrs Tracey would break up her journey by coming to Bathurst a little early so she could have lunch and a cuppa.

Recently, during one of her lunch stops in Bathurst, she was dreaming of better times when she happened to spot a brochure outside a travel agency.

"I was just walking past and dreaming that once this is all finished I'll need a holiday," Mrs Tracey said.

She picked up the travel brochure and later that night, after her radiation treatment, filled in an online entry form.

"I just did it for fun, but you've got to be in it to win it," she said.

Not long after that she received an email from Panorama Cruise and Travel owner Greg Tucker to tell her she had won.

"When I got Greg's email I thought 'oh that's a scam' and I almost deleted it," Mrs Tracey said.

The prize she won was a seven-night P&O cruise from Cairns to Papua New Guinea.

Mrs Tracey said her husband Peter, who was a former Scots School Bathurst teacher, was possibly even more excited about the cruise than she was.

"He's been researching war history and was and ex-Army Reserve for 30 years," she said.

Mrs Tracey, who has now finished her cancer treatment, said she was feeling good

"I still can't believe it, it's so fantastic," she said. "I can't thank P&O, Traveller's Choice and Greg enough."

Mr Tucker said the competition was advertised in the Traveller's Choice brochures that are distributed each quarter to a large number of independent travel agencies across Australia.

This was the first time a winner has been from the Panorama Cruise and Travel.