Tierra Del Fuego - Ushuaia, the end of the road

It was so good, to reach the outskirts of Ushuaia at last!

I'd left Puerto San Julian early, and headed down Ruta 3 along the coast. It was windy at times, but not too bad.  Fairly "nothing" sort of country and the miles passed quickly.  Glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean occured every so often to break the monotony, with the occasional group of guanchos and, infrequently, some keas, one of which I nearly skittled, as it darted out onto the road and then back to safety again.

Passed through Rio Gallegos with its strange road system and out to the south, with the Chilean border my next goal.  Oh, what a pain!  The Argentine border post was a shambles, people everywhere from a number of tourist/intercountry buses, disgorging all their luggage for security checking. I managed to get my hands on one of the needed forms, and filled it in whilst standing in the queue to check out of Argentina for about an hour.  Then I had to go through the Aduana queue, to check the bike out.

At long last, I was processed and back out on the bike, heading for the Chilean border post. Ahhh, no, not again!  All the buses were there, with the people milling around inside, everywhere, again. But at least I could park the bike right outside the door, where I could keep an eye on it. So, another hour and a half later, I was finally back into Chile, heading for Tierra Del Fuego.

The ferry across to the island was almost due to leave as I arrived, so we hopped aboard and set off for the 15 minute journey.  Another 60km, and I arrived at Cerro Sombrero, where I refuelled then headed back to the hotel, as dusk was falling.  There was a tour group of six bikes (2 x 1200GS and 4 x 650GS) already there, so it was good to chat to fellow bikers again.  As the wives/partners of the group were travelling with them in 4-wheelers, they had organised to have dinner in the restaurant, and the leader invited me along.

It was a superb 4 course meal, with a lovely, thick Filet Mignon, and I didn't mind at all, when paying the US$20 for it. So I went off to bed for an early night, in preparation for the 140kms of ripio (gravel) that was facing me the next morning.

Did you know that bikes can multiply during the darkness?  They can, you know, because there were 21 bikes there the next morning! A group of Italians had arrived overnight, and I hadn't heard a thing.  There were 12 black and yellow Bennelli off-roaders and 2  R1200GSs, one of which was in a very sorrowful state, with the front end looking extremely sad and the back end not much better, with the final drive in 2 pieces!  The rider had survived, although he had broken both legs and was being airlifted back to Italy that day.

The tour leader recommended that I take the road right beside the hotel, which, although not the highway, was actually in better condition than the highway, which is torn up and rutted by all the trucks and buses, as well as the cars.  The tour group had been up and back on it over the previous 3 days, and said it was easy.  So that was the way I went, heading out very slowly, and cautiously easing back into riding on gravel.  Other than a few workers heading off to work, there was extremely few vehicles to worry about, and the road was relatively good, except for a few patches of thick pebbles, which caused the pucker factor to skyrocket when I hit them unexpectedly.

It was peaceful and quiet riding through the valley, with only a couple of ranches to break the solitude of the countryside.  There were many guanchos in large and small groups, and also a few singles.  I also saw the first of a number of foxes, slightly larger than the red foxes in Australia, with thicker fur, of a brindle colour, with black tips .  In their rush to get away from the road and the noisy bike, they traversed the paddocks, straight through the flocks of sheep, which appeared unconcerned at their proximity.

At the junction, I stopped and took some photos of some guanchos, as they were conveniently lying quite close to the road, and didn't move as I stopped nearby.  A little further down the road, I noticed black pellets all over the road, and wondered what they were.  I soon found out, when I crested a slight rise and was confronted by wall to wall sheep, complete with three gauchos on horseback and a team of swiftly moving dogs. There must have been a couple thousand sheep, at least.  The gaucho closest to me signalled that I should go through them, so I inched my way forward, trying to not frighten the flock if possible.  But they weren't all that worried about the bike, and I was soon through, and waving goodbye to the gauchos, who returned the wave, naturally.  I suppose they don't see all that many silly Aussie women on bikes riding through their flocks!

The last junction, turning toward San Sebastian and the Chilean and Argentine border posts yet again.  Damn shame about all the road graders ploughing up and down the road.  Yuk!  At least the wind was at my back now, so I didn't get as much dust when traffic went past. Eventually arrived at the Chilean border, and was all done in a matter of 5 minutes, so had a nice warm cup of coffee with all the workers standing around chatting.  Then back on the bike for the last 14km of ripio to the Argentine border post.  Through here also in a few minutes, and I was heading south to Rio Grand on pavement again.

A quick refuel and some lunch saw me keeping to my preplanned schedule of arriving in Ushuaia at 3pm.  The closer I got to Ushuaia, the better the scenery became.  I was astounded at the number of people picnicing along the roadside.They'd drive their cars off the highway in the middle of nowhere, onto little dirt tracks beside the fences, park, and climb the fence into the forests of small trees, setting up their tables, chairs and rugs, all the kids running around have a great old time out in the fresh air.  There were probably at least 100 cars doing this. Family togetherness personified, for sure.

The mountains were covered in snow, and it had cooled down a little, but was still great riding weather by my standards. Wonderful, sweeping roads climbing up then swooping down.  Garibaldi Pass was very nice although I didn't stop for photos, as I'd stopped a short while before.  And how many times can one stop, when every corner brings yet another photo opportunity with scenes beyond belief?

Right on 3pm, I rolled to a stop at the city entrance sign, where I was greeted with waves from a passing 1200GS and a 650GS, heading north. How fitting!  I was here, I'd arrived in Ushuaia, at long last.  What a relief I felt at reaching this achievement, the first of the planned extremes.