Helen and Steve Jackson celebrated her 60th birthday socially distancing while sipping wine under umbrellas. It symbolised their tragic but unforgettable European holiday. Photo / Supplied
Helen and Steve Jackson celebrated her 60th birthday socially distancing while sipping wine under umbrellas. It symbolised their tragic but unforgettable European holiday. Photo / Supplied
"Buggered by Covid and Boris". That's how one couple are describing their dream, bucket-list European holiday.
Kiwi residents Steve and Helen Jackson were supposed to have spent 2020 and 2021 visiting relatives in the United Kingdom before taking in Scandinavia's Northern Lights and chasing the sun south to Portugal.
Their"Farewell Brexit" tour - visiting as many countries as possible - was more than a year in the planning. They sold their New Zealand home, packed their belongings and purchased a $200,000 motorhome.
However, immediately after arriving in the UK, the country went into lockdown, meaning the semi-retirees' dreams of touring Europe went out the window.
A trip highlight was supposed to have been Helen's 60th birthday - a long awaited family reunion-mixed-with-milestone-birthday party.
Instead, the few people gathered at the party could only sit in the rain outside the Jackson's motorhome sipping wine under umbrellas and socially distancing.
"It was just a tragic state of affairs, but in many ways quite memorable," Jackson said.
It was a party that came to be symbolic of much of the couple's trip as they now cross their fingers in hope they will be able to put their motorhome on a boat and make it back to New Zealand in the coming weeks.
Helen Jackson keeps her spirits up in Covid ravaged Britain. Photo / Supplied
They had hoped to return earlier, but found the managed isolation rooms booked through to February.
With Covid spreading alarmingly in the UK again and the country increasingly shutting down, they also worried they may not be able to drive their motorhome to the port ahead of its shipment.
Having moved to New Zealand from the UK in 1998, the couple had earlier been planning their epic adventure for ages.
Departing New Zealand on March 11 this year, they spent five days in Dubai with friends.
Covid was already spreading at the time, and the couple thought about returning to New Zealand.
But they had just sold their Kiwi house and had their new motorhome waiting in the UK.
"We decided to press on and hope that Covid went away," Jackson said.
However, arriving in the UK on March 17, "Covid was rampant".
"At Heathrow people were streaming in with no controls or anything."
The couple picked up their motorhome on March 19 and four days later, the UK plunged into a three-month lockdown.
These were often brought in inconsistently across England, Wales and Scotland, while British PM Boris Johnson's mixed messaging tended to add to the confusion, Jackson said.
For instance, pubs in low Covid areas were at one point allowed to only serve drinks with a "substantial meal".
That led to "lots of fun in media debating what this means", Jackson said.
And while touring the beautiful Cotswolds district recently, Jackson couldn't help but feel how "bizarre the situation" was.
"It's like a zombie movie, or the plague, where you walk on the street and everyone avoids you.
"People have gotten really used to living like this, and it's quite sad really."
Throughout the trip, Jackson and his wife hadn't worried too much about contracting Covid.
