Our three nights on board the Via Australis started in Ushuaia and took us via Cape Horn, through the Beagle Channel and finally arriving into Punta Arenas in Chile. What a great experience this was! The cabin on the boat, which had around 100 guests on board, was plenty comfortable for three nights and had an en-suite bathroom too. This was not a sun lounger, brolly in a cocktail type of cruise, it was a waterproofs, woolly hat, gloves and life vest type of cru...

You certainly do feel like you are a long way south when you get to Ushuaia, the last town of Argentina before you hit the South Atlantic Ocean and the last stop before you reach Antarctica too! Ushuaia would be where we board our ship to take us through the Beagle Channel to Punta Arenas in Chile with a stop, hopefully, at Cape Horn. Before we joined the boat there was however enough time to visit the Tierra del Fuego National Park enjoy the most southerly rail...

El Calafate is a three hour flight south of Buenos Aires and when coming into land at the airport the Patagonian scenery looks very stark and you get a real feeling of remoteness. Once landed we collected a hire car and made our way into the town itself and our accommodation, the Miyazato Inn, which was more B&B than hotel and located a short walk from the actual centre of town. The owners were really friendly and we have stayed here again on a further visit...

As the trip was all about the far south of Argentina our stop in Buenos Aires was a fairly brief two night visit although there was enough time to cram in a few touristy things. Our flight from the UK was with Iberia, via Madrid, to Buenos Aires which was a long old slog especially as service with Iberia, despite being part of One World was not that good. The only advantage was that being on an Airbus A340 from Madrid to BA was that the seating did give us two s...