With the uncertainty around Luke’s escape date from Qatar, Jelley had lined up a quick job over the Christmas and New Years holidays in the very southern tip of England, near a tiny village called Selworthy. She would be living at working at a lodge in Exmoor National Park which hosts walking holidays for guests - the company has 17 lodges around the UK, and while Jelley had originally applied in Scotland and the Lakes District, she landed a job at Holnicote House. The journey from Worthing took 6.5 hours, including 2 trains, 3 buses and a ride from the bus stop to her new home. This was possibly the warmest region in the UK during the winter months, and would be a fantastic place to call home for 3 weeks!
Jelley was helping out around the lodge wherever needed over the holiday period, usually working 7am-10am during breakfast service, then 6.30pm-10pm for the dinner service. This allowed for optimal daylight hours to put on her hiking boots and explore the area by foot! Whilst it was a very isolated location, there were so many walking tracks which started from the estate, many linking up with the South West Coast Path, which runs along this part of the country. She completed many segments of this trail, and made it as far as the Valley of the Rocks by taking the Exmoor Coaster open-top bus to the town of Lynmouth. Every day was an adventure!
Many of the guests at the lodge had been on walking holidays to New Zealand in the past, and it was lovely to hear them share stories. The lodges are usually open during the summer season, but have special 4-7 day Christmas & New Years holiday packages which attract an older crowd who love walking, and may be otherwise spending the holidays alone. It was a super social setup with round tables encouraging meeting new friends, 3 difficulty levels of guided walks each day with all of their transport sorted, packed lunches and mulled wine and hot meals at the end of each day. Such a cool idea and a lovely community atmosphere!
The closest town was Minehead (known for having the oldest population in England). It was quite a big contrast from the diversity of living in Birmingham. One day Jelley got caught out, being dropped at the Minehead supermarket at 2pm and walking back along the South West Coast Path to Selworthy. There was a misjudgement of both distance and sunset time on this day (with the sun setting at 4.15pm!), but luckily she’d packed the headlamp, power bank and rain jacket to make the final part of the hike home in the darkness. Jelley also carried an entire bottle of wine unintentionally, thinking one of her workmates had taken all of her groceries home by car..
The days in Exmoor were spent hiking, with mornings and evenings spent working - it was the perfect change of pace and routine, so nice to have a place to call home, and to be contributing to a positive work environment. Jelley was living in a cute house across the road from the lodge, with a small team of Brits and Spaniards, plus a stray ginger cat fondly named 'Gato'. It was a unique way to spend the holidays away from Luke, family & friends, but a memorable one shared with wonderful people.
Luke finally left Qatar and arrived in California just in time for Christmas with his family (2 years in a row, a new record!). Luke flew over the polar route on the way back from Qatar which was a first for him. He tried to spot Santa while flying over the North Pole, but Santa and his elves must have been busy because it was just a bunch of ice. The reverse culture shock of arriving back in California wasn’t quite as bad as expected, although the jetlag was quite intense. Luke enjoyed spending Christmas with his brother and sister who are now 16 years old! He keeps telling them to stop growing up so fast, but they don’t seem to listen. Luke even gave Danny a cooking lesson and hopefully helped him learn a few new do’s and don’t's.
After spending some quality time with the family, Luke headed down to the lovely town of Santa Barbara, California to enjoy New Years with his best buddies from The Lair. Phil was studying to be a teacher at UCSB and Jackson’s family still lived near SB, so it was the perfect destination to reconvene and celebrate the end of another wonderful year. Zack suggested taking the Amtrak Train down, which was a real treat as it provided some gorgeous views of the California coast. It was really special to reconnect with the boys (and Stine!) again. It was hard to believe that 12 months had passed since we were all in Mexico together.
After arriving back from Santa Barbara, Luke took a special trip with his Mom and Grandparents to Berkeley, CA to visit one of Grandpa Jack's former work colleagues. Luke’s Grandpa used to work as a consultant in water and resource management for governments and municipalities all over the world. In this work, Grandpa Jack worked with a fellow Californian named Sher on work assignments in Egypt, China, and all over the world and they remained close companions afterwards. It was really special to meet Sher and his wife Jean and share in many of the travel stories that he and Grandpa Jack had. Luke also thoroughly enjoyed taking a 'museum tour' of the hundreds of artifacts and souvenirs that speckled nearly every corner of Sher & Jean's house. It was a traveller's treasure trove!
Jelley finished up in Selworthy and had just 6 days until her flight to San Francisco to reunite with Luke! Although the luggage we’d left in the UK throughout the year was split between 3 locations (Worthing, Oxford and London!), and train strikes continued to cause havoc, somehow there was still time to fit in one final weekend away with Greer & Vic.
Making the most of cheap flights out of London, we discovered that a weekend over on the Spanish island of Mallorca would be far cheaper than finding an airbnb and renting a car in the UK, so it was off to the sun for the 3 of us! Mallorca is mostly known for its summer beach vibe and as a superyacht heaven for the rich and famous. It is also a fantastic spot for hiking in the winter months, and we were gifted with the best possible weather for it!
Everything on the island was cheaper in the off-season, and with Vic as our designated driver, we travelled all of 8 minutes to our beachfront apartment as our base for the weekend, just outside the capital of Palma de Mallorca. Arriving at 10.30pm made it the perfect time for dinner in Spain, and we wandered down the road for our first paella and wine for the weekend! In the morning, we set off to hike in the Valldemossa region. After a quick stop in the cute mountainous village, complete with an exceptional panaderia (bakery), we were headed to the Archduke's Trail. We had briefly seen that we may need a reservation in advance, but it turned out there were plenty of other spectacular hikes from the same starting point, and we found the perfect alternative loop track. The views along the coast were stunning. We finished the day returning back to Palma via the town of Port de Soller for sunset .
The next day we were off to check out the Northern side of the island, driving up to the town of Pollença. We tried to find the Sunday market, which had limited stalls operating in the winter, but we did enjoy a lovely coffee in the local plaza to start the day. We were off for another short hike, this one through Jurrasic Park-like landscapes through to the gorgeous cove of Cala Bóquer . The weather was starting to cloud over as we returned to Port de Pollença our final meal at a popular local waterfront restaurant. It was the perfect weekend to end Jelley’s time in Europe with very good food, very good wine and excellent company!
One final touristic day in London involved a quick visit to the Churchill Rooms - an interesting exhibition in the bunker which was the decision-making post during the end of World War II and paid homage to Winston Churchill's contribution. It was fantastic to catch up with Ryan for one last meal (not a drink this time as he was participating in 'Dry January'), and the West End production of 'The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe'.
We were so lucky to have such great friends in the UK, no more so than Lou & Jono who had stored our luggage many many times throughout the year for us! It was Jelley’s 6th visit in around as many months, as she returned to Worthing for the final time to collect our luggage and say farewells. The final night with Lou, Jono & Maybelline was spent with the infamous local Thai food and lots of laughter. Then it was back to London for the last night in the UK - with a fleeting late night drink with friends Laura & Nicole who were visiting from NZ, spending the Christmas holidays in their old home of London. So glad our stars could briefly align in London and we could catch up on life from the past year together!
It had been 2 months since A Kiwi had left A Cali in difficult times in Qatar. It felt like a lifetime ago. It was hard to believe the next plane Jelley jumped on was taking her direct to San Francisco! We have no words to fully describe the relief and joy at being reunited again, and it simply didn’t seem real. We spent our first days at Stinson Beach, the stormy weather making for the perfect excuse to just chill out and enjoy being together again. This is where we had first started our big trip together in December 2021, and we had come full circle! Last year, there was the ‘atmospheric river’ event, and this year a ‘bomb cyclone’ weather event had hit the Bay Area. This storm was significantly worse than the year prior, and creating huge flooding and landslide issues around the region. It was especially crazy to see the damage to the beachfront homes, and the changing face of the entire beach with virgin sand and rocks exposed, when the tide was low enough to get down to the beach and stretch our legs during the storm.
Also hit hard by the storms down in Santa Barbara, Phil & Stine were able to get out and make the journey up Highway 101 to spend the weekend with us in Stinson, along with Zack from San Jose! Jelley had ‘fomo’ missing out on New Years with the crew, so it was awesome they could make the effort to come all the way up to spend the weekend with us. It was the local Stinson Beach Fire Station’s first Bingo night since the pandemic began, and we decided to head down and give it a go. It was a super fun community spirit and a wholesome night overall - Luke was even a lucky winner on the night bringing home a bonus prize of pancake & syrup to make for brekkie in the morning. It was the perfect super relaxed weekend, complete with homemade pizzas, a viewing of Love Actually, games, “spumey” beach walks and the hot tub. We both feel super lucky to be able to connect with such great friends so regularly, even when we live on the other side of the world.
A generous engagement gift from Claire, we went across the Bay to Lafayette for a special stay in a beautiful hotel in the area (thanks Mom!). It was wonderful to be close to Luke’s grandparents and family for a few days, and we shared a special lunch together at their retirement home, followed by dinner with Luke’s siblings, catching up on high school life with them.
We popped over to Piedmont, to catch up with Emma & her new husband Chris at a yummy Mexican restaurant, followed by a famous Fenton’s ice cream. The last time we saw Emma was in 2017, when she was living in New York City. A lot has
changed since then! Emma & Chris were just 2 days away from leaving for their honeymoon to New Zealand! We were excited to hear their plans of hiking the Milford Track (luxury style!), and visiting Hobbiton and the Coromandel (which sadly didn’t happen due to the devastating North Island flooding, but they had a blast in the South Island!).
Then it was back to Stinson Beach to see out the rest of our time in California, where we enjoyed catching up with more friends and family visiting us and Claire out there! Padi & Robert came out, bringing delicious oysters and crab for a seafood feast together. Luke especially enjoyed a guitar and banjo jam session with Robert, we loved hiking up the Matt Davies trail together, and it was so great to spend time with them both here. Elementary school friends Emily & Emma (and Nick!) came out for the day for a walk along the beach, more pizza and even a personalized tarot card reading giving us insight into our year ahead.
We took a day trip over to visit Winnie in San Francisco, taking the ferry from Sausilito right into the city centre. It was just a fleeting day visit, but super nice to see Winnie again, visit her amazing new city pad, and enjoy famous Boudin sourdough with seafood chowder and a treat at Ghiradelli Square. Yum!
Our final visitors to Stinson were Jen & Sarah, who we had spent the previous New Years with in Tahoe. We had fun exchanging travel stories - we had all been to Egypt in the past year since seeing each other, and they had also recently returned from winter in Europe. It had been great spending more quality time with Luke’s family and friends again. We will never run out of things to do in the Bay and have an ongoing list for the ‘next time we’re back’! Because of the storms, we still couldn’t hike up Mt Tamalpais which has been on our wishlist for a while now, and there is plenty more to see and do in the future. Perhaps we will have to visit in a different season next time as this was Jelley’s 3rd winter, and while the winter sunsets are special, it would be nice to feel that warm California sun!
It was time for our next adventure - this one together! After our month in Colombia last year, we couldn’t wait to get back down to South America to continue improving our Spanish and exploring this incredible continent. We were packing our bags for 2 months in Chile, primarily hiking in Patagonia. Internet allowing (thanks StarLink!), this blog is being posted from Villa O’Higgins, at the end of the Carretera Austral in remote Chile, as we wait out a storm to cross the border into Argentina by boat & foot, and continue our adventure. We can’t wait to share our travels in this spectacular country with you!
Until then,
- A Kiwi and A Cali
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Love every part of your journey, so glad you share it with us along the way x Vic