Our final two days of the trip were spent on the California coastline. The region known as Big Sur is popular for its forest that ends in spectacular cliffs that overlook the ocean. We took on a walk that lasted for a few hours and also stopped at really nice look outs along Highway 1, which weaves through the area. We settled in for the night in the town of Lompoc with a wine maker, Steve who was great fun to spend the evening with. We didn't dare bring him wine, as we often did for our hosts, and ended up giving him cookies and chocolates, only to find he was a health food enthusiast and probably wouldn't touch them.

We spent our final day hiking through the Santa Monica mountains and seeing some of the glitzy parts of Los Angeles - Malibu, Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Hollywood. It was a lot to pack into one day but wasn't very different to how we spent most of the year, on the go. We made our way over to the airport 3.5 hours early, thanks to Jansen, but in hind sight it was a lucky because the queues were a joke. All we had left was a 16 hour flight of movie, drinks and being waited on hand and foot before landing in Australia.