Early Sunday morning... Villa O´Higgins

We have reached the end of the road... literally. South of here is by boat only, tomorrow we have a two and half hour boat ride, followed by a 6 hour bike push (to do 7 km)! In the process we re-enter Argentina and after another boat trip across another lake we will reaquainted with a road to take us further south. THat of course is tomorrow...

From Cochrane we headed south west towards the coast and like west coasts all over the world, we also headed towards the rain. Despite the rain, the riding was bliss on virtual traffic free roads, through dense forest, so many amazing waterfalls I lost count and past quite a few cycle tourists as well. We ended up falling in rhtymn with a cycling swiss couple - Pierre and Anita who we have been sharing wine and beers and stories from the road with the last few nights. The first was in the tiny fishing village of Tortel - a town with no roads, just walkways which involved a bit of a nightmare gear portage to get to our accomadation. After day in reasonably heavy day of rain, we were pleased to feel the warmth of Maria´s (landladys)kitchen. She was a pretty eccentric wee woman and was trying to convince Tina that I was too old for her and that she should find someone younger. Her motive was discovered the morning when I was taking the last of our bags out of her room and she tried to convince me to stay with her. Now, Tortel is nice, but I think it must rain there constantly and with one bumpy road in and out of town, the cycling is terrible... so I decided to head on.

We had more rain that morning, but it kind of felt right as we ascended steeply through a narrow gorge, waterfalls thundering all around us. So neither of us minded in the least - which is odd when touring in the rain. On the other side howevere, the weather cleared and we basked in the sun while waiting for an army run ferry to take us to the other side of the fjord.

THe ferry arrived at 7pm in the evening and a nice shelter saw the four us - Tina, Pierre, Anita and I showing little hesitation in using it as a hotel for the night - ironically the driest night we have have in a few days.

The day dawned clear but soon clouded over as Tina and I left early in the big push south yesterday. Pierre and Anita cycled at a very similar pace but their biological clocks were about an hour later than houw so we seldom saw them during the day so we had the road all to ourselves, apart from the few cars that passed us. It was cold... incredibly cold as we ascended and descended a series of hills and cycling through open moorland like countryside with towering mountains ad snow and glaciers not that far above us, we could have been high up in Tibet or Nepal, but we were barely 400 metres above sea level at the most. 100 km is not usually a huge day on the road for us, but on ripio (rough dirt / gravel) roads it was a monster. We were even more determined to make it Villa O´Higgins as the rain started and late that afternoon we rolled in exhausted and very hungry. We found ourselves a nive place to pitch our tent within a hostel in the knowledge that if it rains all day today (it did all last night), we can relax and stay dry in the lounge without been cramped up in a tiny tent....bliss.

So tomorrow we head back to Argentina via ferries and tracks, should be an adventure. The Carettera Austral ends here though. It has been an amazing road to cycle down. I have often heard cycle tourists saying it is the premier cycle route in the world. I don´t beleive in ´the best´, ´the world top ten´or other such catergorised but meaningless ranks as you can never go everywhere and the same place is different for everyone depending on circumstance, but it was an amazing journey and in my books is high up in the list (that doesn´t exist) of places I have been cycle touring.

Next update Argetina... until then... Ciao