Tierra Del Fuego - Part One

Thursday 19th January - Saturday 21st Jamuary 2012 

 JT -It’s about 50 years since I drew the map of  Tierra del Fuego in geography class and decided that one day I had to visit the Land of Fire myself, and I am happy to say it has lived up to all my romantic expectations. The pointed mountains do look like the flames of a fire despite their snow-capped peaks; the air is so crisp and clean, and the light is amazing. It’s not dark till 11pm and light again by about 3.30am, though the sun doesn’t rise till later, so plenty of time to enjoy the shifting clouds and varying shadows on the landscape

We’re staying in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, or El Fin du Mondo, as they like to market it.  The hotel is sweet and right on a small beach, a bit out of Ushuaia main town – a long sprawling conurbation that has grown in a higgledy-piggledy way since the small outpost at the end of the world that Darwin found as he travelled there in the Beagle in the mid-1800s.

At the turn of the century the government in BA decided to make it the penal exile for all its more serious offenders, a bit like Oz to the Brits, and since then it has expanded steadily.

It’s a funny town, but we’ve grown very fond of it, having found an excellent pub, the Placeres Patagonicos, with good wi-fi – the things we judge by these days! The beer, wine and music are also good and they  show British footie on the tele, so Mick’s happy!

Great seafood… and Patagonian wine…

Our first expedition was a boat trip on a fast ship, as we wanted to go to the further islands, where there is a penguin colony. Here is a small selection of the several hundred photos we took that day:

Sea-lions a la Happy Feet 2, so as the two bulls had an argie-bargie in front of us! Nearby some daft Imperial Cormorants, who really don’t look built to fly at all.

And then the penguins – we could have watched them for hours! A visiting King penguin stole the show from the resident Magellans and Gentoo. Loved them all! Yes, quite chilly!

After this we landed at the Haverton Estancia (ranch), for a taste of life here from 1886 to current times, as the ranch is still run by the great, great, great grandson of the original Britsh settler – it’s a long story but really interesting.  Unfortunately since a devastating cold winter in 1995 they now herd only tourists, as 90% of their stock died that year.  As well as a wonderful collection of antiquated household and farming machinery, they also have a research station and museum with a fascinating collection and display of skeletons of all manner of local whales, dolphins and porpoises.

This is the lab where they boil off the flesh of the washed-up dead sealife to reduce it to its skeleton – the smell was SO awful I cannot describe it - we didn’t stay long!!

It was a pretty cloudy day, and cold although it didn't rainat all, occassional bright patches too. But there were some moments when the light was just magical, as we've tried to capture in these shots:

At which point we’ll post this – come back in a couple of days for Ushuaia Part 2!