Not quite as nice a day today. The wind was blowing and it was 10C. You needed to wear a wind jacket to be comfortable.
Another tour today. This time it was of the Terra del Fuego National Park. As someone said ‚you can’t get away for the convicts here‘. The tour bus picked us up and took us along the Pipo Valley to the train station for a ride on the 'To the end of the world train'.
It was a 7 kilometre ride within the national park along on the railway built by the convicts and on which they travelled to fell beech trees for the community. It was a beautiful countryside.
They call the area of the felled trees 'the tree cemetry'. No new trees have regrown here.
We stopped at Macarena Station to see the waterfall.
There were also examples of Yamani civilisation here.
Then back on the train we went to enjoy a further 30 minute train drive with commentary.
At the end of the line we reconnected with our bus for a drive through a sub-antartic beech forest. There are some walking trails and camping areas in the park. Before we started off on one walk we did a group photoshoot. The number of cameras lined up was cause for a good laugh.
Our walk was along the beautiful shoreline.
The swans were very unusual – black necks and white bodies.
The landscape is just beautiful.
Our second walk took us to Lapataia Bay. Lapataia means ‚bay of nice trees.‘
We did a little detour to a beaver dam. Beavers are an introduced species here. They were introduced for the fur but in the environment here they did not grow the same fur as in Canada. So farming them was a waste of time and they let them loose. Now they are playing havoc with the environment and have no natural predators so are increasing in numbers in plague proportions.
Lapapaia Bay was just beautiful.
The Pan American Route finishes here and it is referred to as the end of the world.
Before long it was time for us to head back to Ushuaia.
We had two last stops before going to a restaurant for lunch. These were the two panoramic points in Ushuaia.
This view across the bay is similar to the view that greeted us on arrival at the airport.
After lunch we all went ot the ski hire place to hire the ski gear for the ski race on Antartica. Hubby was very disappointed with the quality of the equipment for hire. It was the basic Head ski that has not been tuned or edges sharpened. They were old and did not compare to the quality of ski gear we are used to in Australia.
Finally we had some free time. After a bit of a rest we ventured out and ended up meeting up with some others from the group. We decided to go somewhere where we could sit and talk. The Irish Pub fitted the bill. As time went by more and more members of the group joined in. Paper money of various countries adorn the walls here. As there was no lithuanian note on the wall the group decided to add to their collection.
Another great day and evening. We are all waiting anxiously for the cruise starting tomorrow.
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