Despite the title of this post I already find myself wavering so if you will excuse me one short outburst.... I HATE THE WIND!..... Phew. Now that´s out of my system I feel I can carry on in a more partisan tone.
We left Punta Arenas relatively early in the morning and finally started, what felt like to us at least, our proper trek northwards. The day started relatively easy........ the road out of P. Arenas is well paved and realtively flat - there wasn´t that much wind either. We had an excellent morning knocking out a nice 30km before our first break for some water and trail mix - I say our first break.... what I actually mean is an opportunity to use some different muscles! We´d stopped for our break by a little roadside picnic area - grass, trees the usual kind of stuff and we noticed a couple of Spanish guys pushing a car trying to give it a push start - being polite chaps we offered to help and so there we were on our break, pushing this flat batteried car up and down the picnic area...... In the end we had to give up..... and we left the guys at the side of the road trying to flag down a car so they could use some jumper cables.
We carried on for another couple of hours and on our second break, after about 55km, we met a policeman who stopped his patrol car by us just to make sure we were okay and maybe to check we weren´t crazy. He was working out of Villa Tehuelches, a very small 'pueblito' about 45km further on up the road and said if we got there later in the day there were places we could camp for free. We got through those 45km in a few more hours and rolled into the sleepy little hamlet of Tehuelches about 5pm. The policeman we'd met earlier was standing by the roadside with his radar gun in his hand and he gave us a warm greeting. After a bit of chat about our trip and all the usual stuff, he showed us where we could camp on a piece of land at the top of the village. It was perfect: soft grass, flat, and out of the wind. The sun was beating down, the wind had eased off and we were generally feeling pretty chuffed with our first 100km day! If we'd known about the 'Policeman's hat' challenge earlier, this guy in Tehuelches would have been the perfect candidate for a hat photo... but there will be other opportunities im sure!
After a good night's sleep, we carried on down Ruta 9 in the morning. The wind had really picked up since the first day and the going was far tougher. Up in the hills, the wind was against us all day and persistent rain all afternoon really didnt help matters. We struggled through an uninspiring 80km and finally pitched up in another little Villa, this time in a man's front Garden! (we asked first of course
On the third day we only had to cover 65km to Puerto Natales, but it turned out to be the hardest of the three days. The winds were ferocious as we neared the coast and even going down quite steep hills was really hard work! The view coming into the town kept us going though - P. Natales sits on a natural harbour and across the water sits the start of the main "cordillera" of mountains that runs up the continent - splitting Chile from Argentina. Quite an impressive site - photo´s do not do it justice!
We arrived in town tired, but elated at the same time. We hooked back up with Dicky in the camp site we´d picked before leaving P. Arenas, pitched our tent and got down to eating a massive dinner of pasta (again) followed by some hardcore sleeping.
That´s about it for now - we leave for Torres Del Paine National Park tomorrow - our next blog will feature tales from our two days at the camp site and what we got up to when we met a crazy, yet brilliant, family of Ecuadorians! Hopefully that will wet your appetite for a bit more blog......
Next time you hear from us we´ll be in El Calafate and a stones throw from one of the most impressive Glaciers in the world, the Perito Moreno.
Speak to You Soon.
BigJay and Blenk.
We left Punta Arenas relatively early in the morning and finally started, what felt like to us at least, our proper trek northwards. The day started relatively easy........ the road out of P. Arenas is well paved and realtively flat - there wasn´t that much wind either. We had an excellent morning knocking out a nice 30km before our first break for some water and trail mix - I say our first break.... what I actually mean is an opportunity to use some different muscles! We´d stopped for our break by a little roadside picnic area - grass, trees the usual kind of stuff and we noticed a couple of Spanish guys pushing a car trying to give it a push start - being polite chaps we offered to help and so there we were on our break, pushing this flat batteried car up and down the picnic area...... In the end we had to give up..... and we left the guys at the side of the road trying to flag down a car so they could use some jumper cables.
We carried on for another couple of hours and on our second break, after about 55km, we met a policeman who stopped his patrol car by us just to make sure we were okay and maybe to check we weren´t crazy. He was working out of Villa Tehuelches, a very small 'pueblito' about 45km further on up the road and said if we got there later in the day there were places we could camp for free. We got through those 45km in a few more hours and rolled into the sleepy little hamlet of Tehuelches about 5pm. The policeman we'd met earlier was standing by the roadside with his radar gun in his hand and he gave us a warm greeting. After a bit of chat about our trip and all the usual stuff, he showed us where we could camp on a piece of land at the top of the village. It was perfect: soft grass, flat, and out of the wind. The sun was beating down, the wind had eased off and we were generally feeling pretty chuffed with our first 100km day! If we'd known about the 'Policeman's hat' challenge earlier, this guy in Tehuelches would have been the perfect candidate for a hat photo... but there will be other opportunities im sure!
After a good night's sleep, we carried on down Ruta 9 in the morning. The wind had really picked up since the first day and the going was far tougher. Up in the hills, the wind was against us all day and persistent rain all afternoon really didnt help matters. We struggled through an uninspiring 80km and finally pitched up in another little Villa, this time in a man's front Garden! (we asked first of course
On the third day we only had to cover 65km to Puerto Natales, but it turned out to be the hardest of the three days. The winds were ferocious as we neared the coast and even going down quite steep hills was really hard work! The view coming into the town kept us going though - P. Natales sits on a natural harbour and across the water sits the start of the main "cordillera" of mountains that runs up the continent - splitting Chile from Argentina. Quite an impressive site - photo´s do not do it justice!
We arrived in town tired, but elated at the same time. We hooked back up with Dicky in the camp site we´d picked before leaving P. Arenas, pitched our tent and got down to eating a massive dinner of pasta (again) followed by some hardcore sleeping.
That´s about it for now - we leave for Torres Del Paine National Park tomorrow - our next blog will feature tales from our two days at the camp site and what we got up to when we met a crazy, yet brilliant, family of Ecuadorians! Hopefully that will wet your appetite for a bit more blog......
Next time you hear from us we´ll be in El Calafate and a stones throw from one of the most impressive Glaciers in the world, the Perito Moreno.
Speak to You Soon.
BigJay and Blenk.
