2018-03-19 Day 292 Mon.


Even stronger wind so dropped the top most of the way down. That stopped some of the noise and the rocking. The heater did not start, fan issues. A walk towards the beach was perilous as when the wind blew up from the beach we could hardly stand against it.

The water was being whipped off the lake, gust must be about 60 knots. We even had spray on the windshield about 50m away.

An interesting process of dropping the lid as when the wind rushed past it was sucking all the canvas outside.



A drive to a look out over Lago Belgrano followed by a short but cold and very windy walk.






We didn't know that there was such a bird as a black necked white swan.!
We also walked to the small lake to see the birds, a great little hut to sit in and watch through windows. Didn't see much but there are black necked white swans here, flamingos and a few other geese and ducks.
Drove slowly out of the parque with a strong tail wind. Hoping we would not have to siphon fuel from the top tank. We should nearly make it.

Well the wind was doing such a good job as well as driving at 65km/hr on the dirt and 75km/hr on the high way we got to the fuel station without the fuel light on.

Filled up, then sat and used the stations wifi.

Bought a few fresh food items and headed out to lake Cardiel where we camped on the side of the road facing into the wind. We were still well above the lake. Still the heater will not start but we heated water for a shower.
290km

2018-03-18 Day 291 Sun


Even stronger wind so dropped the top most of the way down. That stopped some of the noise and the rocking. The heater did not start, fan issues. A walk towards the beach was perilous as when the wind blew up from the beach we could hardly stand against it.

The water was being whipped off the lake, gust must be about 60 knots. We even had spray on the windshield about 50m away.

An interesting process of dropping the lid as when the wind rushed past it was sucking all the canvas outside.



A drive to a look out over Lago Belgrano followed by a short but cold and very windy walk.






We didn't know that there was such a bird as a black necked white swan.!
We also walked to the small lake to see the birds, a great little hut to sit in and watch through windows. Didn't see much but there are black necked white swans here, flamingos and a few other geese and ducks.
Drove slowly out of the parque with a strong tail wind. Hoping we would not have to siphon fuel from the top tank. We should nearly make it.

Well the wind was doing such a good job as well as driving at 65km/hr on the dirt and 75km/hr on the high way we got to the fuel station without the fuel light on.

Filled up, then sat and used the stations wifi.

Bought a few fresh food items and headed out to lake Cardiel where we camped on the side of the road facing into the wind. We were still well above the lake. Still the heater will not start but we heated water for a shower.
290km

2018-03-17 Day 290 Sat


A lovely morning so we walked down to the river and a swing bridge. The male in a small group of guanaco was “barking” at us. They stayed close by but continued to make noises about our intrusion.

The exit from Chile was very simple the agent who handled immigration and aduana was having a few problems with his 2 year old daughter wanting to get her hands on our passports….

Argentina on the other hand was a little more difficult than usual. One guy was in training so all the hoops were gone through. Did we have any camera’s, computers, phones tablets etc. we showed him the tablet we had taken into his office then they wanted to see inside EC. That was all good. Just as well the uninteresting drawers are opposite the door. By the time he’d seen our plates then pots he had seen enough.
John opened a locker and he had a quick poke. Back to the office where everything was dutifully written down into books and our Aduana carefully filled out with irrelevant portions neatly ruled through.

Once again back into Argentina, this time for about 2 weeks. The land scape changes very quickly once the mountains are left behind. Flat and dry. Even when there are rivers or lakes nothing visually changes.

Did a southerly loop to Bajo Caracoles where there was no diesel.Decided we could just make the Nacional parque Francisco P.Moreno for a quick look and back.

Arrived at park headquarters close to 20:00hrs. The guy was very friendly and showed us all the places on the map with walk times and where we could camp and which places were windy.

 

We chose the closer of the camps at lake Burmeister and traveled the 15km to the site. Saw a small black and white animal who stood on his hind legs to frighten me off. The campsite was indeed very windy. The tent sites had protection in the form of vertical log surrounds.





We had tried to pump fuel down from the auxiliary tank but although pump seems to be running no fuel is moving.

We camped with a view of the lake head on to the wind. In some of the gust EC really did get shaken about.
376km

2018-03-16 Day 289 Fri


John continued to drive as I didn’t like the road. Yesterday it was wet and slippery with fast oncoming vehicles. Today was better but I was happy for john to drive.
The waterfalls in some places arrive right at the road side and seem to just disappear into the ground.

Stopped by a lovely stream and with the aerial up were able to get a signal for Internet. We sat for a couple of hours and did some more work. Benalla Travel sent the flights through.

I reopened a conversation from 2 months ago about Patagonian cruises. There are berths on a sailing leaving Punta Arenus on the 31st and back from Ushuaia on the 7th giving us still 6 days before John leaves. Maybe we’ll do the loop down to Ushuaia or something else. Confirmed that we wanted the cruise and said I’d be out of contact for 2 days.



The lakes had two exits within 40m of each other. and they both chewed through rock into amazingly narrow deep gorges.

Put more money on the Chile sim, John bought some fruit and bread and we headed off east towards the Chile boarder.

Drove into a Parque that was not on our map which we thought might complicate our camping. A few marked camp sites were locked but we found a good side road and drove down it. A ute was parked in a perfect camp spot on the side of the road. We found another further down the hill. As John was getting the leveling blocks the ute left so we headed back up the hill to camp there.

161km

2018-03-15 Day 288 Thu

Tied one bike on the back and another over the cab and we were off.

We passed  some great blue rivers so were getting in ond out of the vehicle often.

Dropped the cyclist off in Cochrane, then we sat beside the town square and did some internet jobs.

I emailed a few agents in Monte Video about shipping and storage of the vehicle. We had missed the deadline to pay for Johns flights and when I emailed Frank back I suggested he try a flight from Punte Arenus.
We continued on our way south to Caleta Tortel, which is actually on the ocean or at least up one of the many fjords. We marked off potential camp sites on the map for use on the way out this evening. About half way in we had internet access. I had a chat to John Y and posted emails back and forth with a couple of the shipping agents. One discovered that the storage in Antwerp would be cheaper than here in Monte Video.

However they do all the custom clearance and we just pick up the vehicle at a later stage. One payment for stuffing and unstuffing, customs, wharf, shipping etc. Sounds pretty good.

At Tortel we went for a walk. One cannot drive in the town, it has wooden board walks everywhere. Quite unusual and reminded us of Cinque Terre in Italy. We wondered around the water front on the boardwalk. Quite a quaint town. It has only had road access for 15 years, prior to that plan or boat only.

Our ponchos were put to good use again. Although towards the end of our walk the rain had eased.

This little fire "Truck" took our eye.  It is kept in it's "carport" and ready for action. Seems ideal as the "streets" can't carry cars and a lot of the town is close to the waters edge.

Before we left we had a set of new flights for john so made sure we paid then sent the receipt to Benalla Travel as we will not have Internet again till midday tomorrow.

We only traveled about 8km’s before we stopped at 719:30 by a small river for the night.

194 km

2018-03-14 Day 287 Wed

The rain stopped and the day looked good.


John spotted this different kind of tree house!!!
We arrived at the town of Puerto Rio Tranquilo and stopped at the tourist info office. Found the price of the boat trips A$20 and went next door to purchase the tickets to the marble caves. Next boat leaving at 12:00 midday - so had 25 mins. Found our wet weather gear and made a flask of tea, then stood around with a couple of young gerrman research chemists while awaiting another two people to join our trip. An hour later we boarded the skiff and off onto the wild lake. Bigger seas here than we saw on the east coast!!





The marble caves had been worn by the wind and waves. The boat fitted into a few and through some arches. The surface of the marble was pock marked everywhere even where the water was eroding it. The ride back was a little wild and wet although the skipper did do a pretty good job of keeping us dry. We were told that the waters were calm today.

We parked by their van and I fed us all on chicken soup. Lars bought some rollups (no bread) and some dark beer which was pretty good. Made in Puerto Nateles. We said our goodbyes and headed south.

Two cyclist were after a lift to Cochrane but we were looking for a camp so we said if they see us tomorrow we’d give them a lift. However we found a camp on the waters edge within 5km’s so went back to the cyclists and took
all their bags in EC.

We camped together at the waters edge and they shared our salami stew which I enlarged with a can of kidney beans. Oh and the drought broke when we opened a bottle of red, a good excuse to open a bottle. They were tired, so an early night.

135km


2018-03-13 Day 286 Tue

 Back into town to try and get our Chilean Sim to talk to the internet. Found the Claro shop and the lady magically made it work so now back online.
Did a big shop at unimarc replacing all our fresh food then sat and sent a few emails. One to Frank requesting flight options for JA and the other to agents in Monte Video for quotes on shipping the EC to Antwerp.

Drove out after midday and headed south towards the blue marble caves 222km away. Was not to be today, a lot of road works and waiting, and once we got passed the road works the road was potholes joined with dirt. So very slow again.


It had been raining gently most of the afternoon and was very beautiful with the mist and rainbows.



We found a camp off to the side of the road in the rain.

180km

2018-03-12 Day 285 Mon

A little rain in the night. A big cook up. A chook breast made into a soup. John made a curry with a chunk of beef. What to do with two salamis, 4 carrots, an apple, 4 tomatoes, 2 onions and some ginger and garlic? A salami stew of course….. All the fresh food used except two banana and two lettuce. This is what happens when one changes their mind and direction.

Now that it has been confirmed that John will go back to Aus in April we have had to change our plan. We will do the southern part of Chile on the way south as we have 5 weeks before he flies and only 3 when he gets back to be up in Monte Video.

We made it to the border about 2pm and cleared out of Argentina without fuss.

Clearing into Chile was also easy. We did loose an Argentinian cheese and a packet of Argentinian cured meat. I could keep the ham and the Spanish prosciutto. The Guys were really interested and friendly and apologetic to taking our stuff. John and I did break our diet and eat some of the cheese and cured meat before it went to the incinerator. Oh and yes I gave them the honey. 



We arrived in Coyhaique and got the windscreen repaired at Copec in short order, A$50. Then we got the tyre repaired again… The tube was not damaged but had a pin hole.





The dog enjoyed our tube as a mattress!!

There is steel poking out from the last repair. He put a BIGGER patch on and repaired the tube. We stood around for about 1.5 hours while this was done and a few other tyres.
John got some small bits of maintenance done. All fixed and we high tailed it to a lake arriving in the dark and finding no way off the road. Finally found a small track and perched just above the quiet road.

151 km

2018-03-11 Day 284 Sun

After some discussion we decided not to waste another day awaiting for Monday to get the windscreen fixed here at Comodoro Rivadavia, we’ll get it fixed in Chile.
So we headed off. The roads were very bad in places and had to cross a small but very muddy river. John was driving so my turn to get muddy feet. First one very easy the second one easy for truck but my feet were well glued up. The mud was only a couple of inches deep but very sticky. EC just rolled across. We did the 80km’s in 2 hours. Once on the main road we made good progress but had to deal with strong winds and trucks….


We stopped in at the Petrified forest which was amazing to see all these stone logs lying around breaking up as they become exposed to the elements. In places the ground just looked like some had been collecting fire wood, wood “chips” everywhere.
At Sarmiento we again tried for internet and money, neither was successful. We continued East.
At a tiny town Dr Ricados Rojas we managed to get money, so I got two lots out 4000 peso about A$250.
Since our turn off to the petrified forest we were on a good gravel road. We were hoping on making camp beside the river in daylight however another flat back right delayed us half an hour. We assume something to do with the patch and tube. I had driven on it a little way thinking the strange behavior was the amount of loose gravel on the road.
After a few false starts, in the dark, we found a camp by the river between to lazy bends. Pork chops for dinner.
We are 4/5 of the way across Argentina. Border tomorrow
498km

2018-03-10 Day 283 Sat




At 09:00 we were waiting with a group of two couples and a 2yr old for the Land Rover Defender to take us to the boat.

The runabout was in the tide in the middle of a creek that dries at low tied. We boarded and headed out to the islands. A gorgeous day with a nip in the air definitely jacket weather. A fantastic trip very relaxed and slow. The penguins were a bit shy and only showed themselves by the couple. Last week there were hundreds out on the beach. Maybe they had slept in this morning….

We saw the steamer ducks who over the centuries have forgotten how to fly but the wings beat the water when running on it which gives them the name from the paddle steamers.

The sea lions were great and the pups were out for a play while being supervised in the kindergarten. 4 mums with 20 or so young ones to look after.

A really great trip US$70 each but a 3.5hr tour, well worth it. Have seen my sea lions so now we can head inland.

Sat around trying to use their WiFifi then headed out there gate to get clear of the generator noise. Camped at the other end of the beach with the “town “ in full view, amazing how dry it is.

Last year in one week they got 800mm which was 4 years worth of rain. Hence all the damage of the roads hear abouts.