Once again the drive itself was amazing (from Puerto Natales to Tierra del Fuego). The roads are both paved and gravel and there is very little traffic on the way. The views across the steppes should have been boring by now and at least tedious...but they were not.

Watching Guanaco running wild, seeing Rheas, Eagles, Condors and Llama, and as we arrive in Tierra del Fuego, just 5 minutes after crossing the Strait of Magellan Pink Flamingos in their 100s and 1000s dot the passing lakes and lagoons. So this is Tierra del Fuego, a land that to me has always had a touch of awe and mystery since hearing about the Land of Fire as a child. Well the fires no longer burn of course. There are no volcanoes in Tierra del Fuego, the name came from the 100´s of camp and cooking fires that were seen from the ships of discovery. The thousands of Indians who lived in the area were then systematically killed, with a bounty offered for their ears....disease did in the rest of these people who had lived o Tierra del Fuego in peace for 100´s of years. The last full blooded Indian of the area, died just last year...the culture died long before that....a sad story repeated around the world. This one took just 30 years to wipe out a race in the second half of the 1800´s, after the Beagle Channel was navigated by the same ship carrying Charles Darwin. Oh well....back to lighter matters.

Our 1st stop in Tierra del Fuego was in our tents on an Estancia (Las Hijas - big sky photos of this magic place are on photo page) north of Ushuaia (well, as 99.9% of the world is I suppose) and south of the Strait of Magellan. The Estancia was a photo paradise, as was the food and facilities. Even our tents seemed like lodges, perhaps it was the lack of wind, snow, sleet and rain, plus PINK tents that made the difference here! A lamb was roasted on the open fire, the setting sun blazed pink across a massive southern sky and even the clouds added to a perfect canvass of nature.We left the Estancia very reluctantly and somewhat expectantly the next morning as we headed ever more south, through mountain ranges, cresting above lakes and, most surprising to me, through virgin forests gnarled and twisted by a thousand plus years of wind, ice and sleet. This is an amazing place be and comforting to know.

The forests seemed to be of great age, and in a land where it takes at least 200 years for a small tree to mature (that would take just 15 years in other lands) and a year for a moss to grow just a single millimetre, you appreciate something of its vulnerability and the need to protect this place. Well, (do excuse my endless pontificating here...it is just what is in my head as I reflect now), in the 2nd part of the day we hiked up to a lake (Lago Escondido) with a crazy dog (crazy dawg!) from the mountain lodge we were to staying that night, as our new mountain guide. Across the small lake are more mountains either side of a massive valley which generates a 6 pus times echo.

This was most perplexing to our barking guide, who had to continually bark for an hour in order to respond to every bark she heard in return! We had to carry her away when it was time to leave, tail wagging with every echo!Time slips by and now we are at the end of our trekking with the folk we have been with for the past 14 days. We all looked forward to getting to Ushuaiai, in part just for the novelty of it in truth, but also I think we were a little sad to be leaving and saying goodbye to all the others, for all of whom a return to work would be just a few days away.Anyway Ushuaiai, like so much else, was beyond our expectations. We had good weather and a good time of it.

On arrival we did a final trek of just three hours along the shores of the Beagle Channel, again through ancient, moss covered and beautiful forests draped in Lichen to add atmosphere and attest to the purity of the air (Old Mans Beard variety of Lichen is only found where the air is pure).Later in the afternoon we took a four hour boat trip out into the Beagle Channel. Anni and I originally thought of giving it a miss but were very glad we went. The bird life on the channel is bloody huge! Cormorants skim the waters like guided missiles, sea lions below, fight, birth and laze in the sun, all in front of our eyes.

All that was missing were the low tones of David Attenborough in his best BBC Docudrama style! From the boat we are surrounded in the channel with the DarwinMountain range covered in snow as a back drop, the Andes running east to west at the back of Ushuaiai and again all capped in snow. Beautiful beyond description here. To top off the experience we stopped just 30 feet from a colony of Sea Lios, catching in camera and mind the struggle of life as a sea lion gave birth to a pup.

The pup we assume must have been a male, as the dominant bull Sea Lion immediately attacked and tried to kill the pup....the mother just a third of the size of the Bull, sunk in here teeth and fended off the bull, before unceremoniously dragging the pup across the rocks to a new place, far enough for the bull to give up on its attack. Wow!

The photo are in the album.Back on our own after a farewell dinner with our fellow trekkers and Diego, our erstwhile Argentinean guide who had been with us throughout, Anni and I stayed on in Ushuaiai for another two days. On the last day we did a trek up to Martial Glacier, in the mountains immediately behind Ushuaiai. The Glacier itself is not really worth a second look, but the view over Ushuaia, out across the Beagle Channel and around the mountains, while realising that you are just 1000 kilometres AntarcticaPeninsula, 3040 kilometres from Buenos Aires, in the most southern town on planet earth.......well, it is not a bad feeling to be had!