Happy 2025! It feels like it was just a few weeks ago that Brett and I were drafting our 2024 adventure goals from the cosy shepherd's hut where we spent last NYE. But, somehow, another year has flown by, full of new challenges and new adventures.
To welcome in 2025, we spent New Year's Eve celebrating in Paris, Brett's home since mid-2024. It was the third New Year's Eve we've spent together – and our third country in which we've celebrated the start of a new year! After cycling around the city in the afternoon, we cooked a delicious pasta dinner at Brett's flat and then walked to the Louvre to watch the NYE fireworks. The atmosphere was joyful and we had a lovely evening, finished off with a cocktail at a cosy brasserie.
Like previous years, we wanted to take some time to reflect on our adventure goals for 2024 and make some new goals for the coming year.
2024 goals
Complete at least one new section of the South West Coast Path ✓
Back in January, before all of my weekends were taken up by cycling, we did a few winter hikes on the SWCP, including hiking from Salcombe to Soar Mill Cove and completing a short stretch along the coast near Dartmouth.
Do another chill getaway vacation (to actually relax for once!) ✓
To celebrate Brett submitting his PhD thesis, we spent a relaxing weekend at the Headland Hotel in Newquay (taking advantage of the five-star hotel's winter offer of two-nights-for-the-price-of-one). We enjoyed relaxing in the spa – which included an outdoor hot tub with a panoramic view of the sea – as well as playing backgammon in the hotel lounge . On Saturday, we braved the wind and rain to hike 10 kilometres around the Newquay headlands, before warming back up in the spa.
Explore a city in Germany ✓
A few days after celebrating at the Headland Hotel, Brett moved to Hamburg, where he worked for a few months at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. In May, I went out to visit him for three weeks and we had a lot of fun exploring the city and surrounding area together. The weather was glorious, so we did a lot of cycling and enjoyed multiple picnic dinners, lake swims, and walks around the city.
Do a multi-night bikepacking trip ✓
When we set our adventure goals for 2024, I don't think we had any idea how much bikepacking we'd be doing this year! We ended up going on four separate bikepacking trips together, including two multi-night trips. The first was in northern Germany (more on that later) and the second was our 150-mile ride from Exeter to Falmouth for my MRes graduation. We've enjoyed this new way of adventuring together and have many bike tours planned for future trips!
Go camping in a new country ✓
During my visit to Hamburg, we went on a bike camping trip in northern Germany. We were both riding...unconventional...touring bikes – Brett was on his Brompton and I was on a Swapfiets (a bike designed for light city commuting, not multi-day bike tours). We spent one night on Rügen – Germany's largest island – and another night at a campsite outside of Wismar. Highlights included walking through Jasmund National Park in the mist, visiting the Treetop Walk, skinny dipping in the Baltic Sea and watching sunset over the Wismar harbour. The campsites weren't the most impressive (and the second was an outright unpleasant experience due to huge swarms of mosquitoes), but we had a fun time exploring charming German towns, wild swimming, and spotting plenty of castles!
Visit the Alps ✓
We both visited the Alps this year, but separately. Brett visited Chamonix in the French Alps over the summer for some trail running and I spent two nights in the Julian Alps at Lake Bled in Slovenia with my sister (which you can read about here).
Visit a new Christmas market ✓
Our first Christmas market of the season was the fairly tacky main Christmas market in central Paris, which we'd visited together in 2022. We can tick this goal off the list, however, because we both visited new Christmas markets, just not together. I visited the Bath Christmas market with my mum and Brett visited Christmas markets in Hamburg and Strasbourg.
Train more consistently (e.g. don't go a month without aerial, running, climbing, gym etc) ✓
I think we both did a better job at being fairly consistent with our training, although life does often get in the way of staying fit! Brett completed his first marathon and enjoyed long trail runs in Chamonix and Sedona. I was fairly consistent with aerial training for the first six months of the year, but this has faded a bit as I started really focusing in on bike training.
The only goal we didn't manage to complete last year was to write postcards to each other from each new city we visited. We started the year off strong, but didn't quite keep it up throughout the year. C'est la vie.
2025 adventure goals
And now some new adventure goals for the new year! We already know 2025 is going to be a big year of outdoor adventures – we'll be stepping out of our comfort zones and pushing ourselves physically and mentally. This year, for the first time, we've come up with some personal adventure goals, as well as our traditional couple's adventure goals.
My goals:
Survive and thrive on my fieldwork cycle ride
Do more watercolour painting while on outdoor adventures
Write a story for bikepacking.com
Swim at sunrise on the summer solstice
Brett's goals:
Write a blog post for Coves to Cliffs
Run 800 kilometres over the year
Do a long-distance cycle ride (e.g. Paris to London)
Join Veronica for portion of her fieldwork cycle ride
Do a multi-day trail run
Our couple's goals:
Cycle 8,000 kilometres collectively (over the year)
Go camping in France
Be more consistent with strength training
Go camping with friends/family
Explore new places in France
Write more postcards (for real this time)
Here's to another year of adventures! Wishing you health and happiness on whatever adventures you are embarking on this coming year!
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