El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina - January 2008

Sam at Glaciar Perito Moreno.

Looking up Glaciar Perito Moreno to the Andes.

Sam's been telling me some of my writing has been a bit sloppy lately. I've had a bit of a think about that and come up with a bit of a theory on why some posts are readable and others are the written equivalent of Valium. My main theory is that a lot of the places I'm writing about in the blog I visited a long time ago, so (with my developing dementia ) I have a lot of trouble remembering the quirky little things that happened at the time. The colour is what I think makes some posts better than others. Having said that, the blog is a hobby for my own benefit, if it was a serious task I suppose I would spend a little more time on the writing (not to mention on some of the unflattering dodgy photo's that I post), but I treat it more like a personal diary. As I write this my mother in law has just emailed a mistake in the last post, I was hoping nobody would notice :)

El Calafate airport with Lago Argentino in the distance.

The main drag of El Calafate.

Anyway its my fiftieth post so I'd better make it somewhere interesting, how's Patagonia sound? This was my first visit to this region, we were on our way down to Ushuaia to catch a boat down to Antarctica, so we thought that seeing that we were on the right continent we may as well get a taste of Patagonia. We based ourselves in the large town of El Calafate for three days and did day trips out to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares from there.

That'd be my dinner cooking

Hope they left some for everybody else.

El Calafate is situated on the shore of the massive Lago Argentino and has the feel of a bit of a frontier town especially as you wander away from the tree lined centre of town. Our hotel was a couple of kilometres from the centre of town and we had more company from dogs than people on our walks into and out of town. It was a slightly surreal experience to be walking along the dusty road with blue icebergs floating down the lake and Pink Flamingos feeding in the shallows. El Cafate was where we experienced our first parrilla, basically an Argentine steak house, some people like chocolate, some beer, we'll my vice is meat. This was the first time since before I was a teenager that I couldn't finish the amount of meat piled onto my plate, I new I wasn't going to go home any thinner!

Pink Flamingo's feeding in the shallows of Lago Argentino, El Calafate.

The dry dusty out skirts of El Calafate remind my of outback Australia.

On our first full day in El Calafate we caught a bus out to Puerto Bandera and then jumped on a boat for a cruise up to Glaciar Upsala and Glacier Onelli. The North Arm of Lago Argentina was incredibly rough and there was a fair few people looking pretty pale by the time the boat reached the calmer waters near Glacier Upsala. It was our first experience being in a boat sailing around massive ice bergs, we were certainly in a different world than our usual Christmas destination, the deep north of Australia. After checking out Glacier Upsala we negotiated an ice berg choked arm to visit Glacier Spegazzini.

Our first ice berg.

Glaciar Upsala.

The bare rock shows how much the glaciers are in retreat.

Another retreating glacier coming down from the Andes.

Back tracking a little the boat docked at Bahia Onelli and we grabbed our small packed lunch and headed of on the short half a kilometre walk through the linga (beech?) trees over to Lago Onelli. The lake was fed by the giant Glacier Onelli and Glacier Agassiz, and was choked with large and small ice bergs. We were able to grab small ones from the shore, we were like a couple of excited kids as we walked along the edge of the lake checking out the ice. After a while we headed into the beech forest a little to get out biting Patogonian wind, and after finding a sheltered spot enjoyed our picnic lunch, with the sound of the calving glacier in the distance.

We're off to check out Lago Onelli now.

Rugged up to combat the Patagonian wind.

Don't normally see this in the deep north.

Lago Onelli, with Glaciar Onelli in the back ground.

The linga (beech?) forest at Lago Onelli were we had lunch.

Heading back to Puerto Bandera.

We could see ice bergs floating down Lago Argentino past out hotel.

El Calafate provide another meat feast that night, we ate at around 8 pm but were quickly realising that most of the locals ate a lot later than that. Things were starting to liven up around 10 pm when we left and walked, in broad daylight back to our accommodation. Apart from snow, ice, and glaciers, the other thing we were getting used to was the amount of daylight here at this time of the year, it didn't get dark until after 11 pm, it was good preparation for our up coming trip to Antarctica where it wouldn't really get totally dark for the whole time we were down there.

The 'carny' was in town.

Check out the pile of meat beside Sam, mines buried under the Pterodactyl egg.

Yeah, that's 10:43 at night, it took a while to get used to the daylight.

The next day we caught a bus out to Perito Moreno Glacier, wow, what a spectacular sight. The massive glacier spills down from the Andes and completely dams the Rico Arm of Lago Argentina. The glacier is continuously calving house size chunks into Canal de los Tempanos, we went out on a small boat that took us along the face of the glacier, the boat dwarfed by the slowly advancing wall of ice. Every now and again the force of the water damned up by the glacier will collapse the end of the glacier and a wall of ice and water will make its way into Lago Argentina. With the cruise over we headed to the extensive series of lookouts below the visitor centre to try and capture the majesty of the scene in front of us ( failing miserably :), the local parks people have spent a lot of money on infrastructure, board walks, steps, benches, etc to make the glacier accessible to most people. After a bite to eat at the restaurant it was onto the bus for our trip back to El Calafate, and another cow for diner.

Heading out RP 15 on our way to Perito Moreno.

Have I mentioned the wind? :)

Perito Mereno Glaciar from the Brazo Rico side, the glacier dams this section of Lago Argentino before the water pressure eventually collapses the end of the glacier and lets the water flow through to the rest of the lake.

It would certainly be cool to see this.

Glaciar Perito Moreno from the Canel de los Tempanos side.

Taken from the boat that cruises along the face of the glacier.

The Dirt.
There are numerous companies running tours out to the glaciers so you will have no trouble booking one from El Calafete. The blog wasn't even a twinkle in my eye when we did this trip so I didn't write any notes on accommodation and restaurants, needless to say they were all very adequate, El Calafate is a tourist town so expect to find something there to cater for most needs. The modern airport is a fair way out of town so try to get accommodation with transfers. Saying Patagonia is a bit windy is the same as saying Sam likes chocolate a bit, its bloody windy so go prepared.

The people in charge of the Parque Naacional Los Glaciares have certainly spent some money on infrastructure.

Glaciar Perito Mereno is massive.

The visitor centre and cafe at Perito Moreno.

Our digs in El Calafate, it was better than it looks!

Waiting for our connection to Ushuaia, Sam doesn't seem to impressed with the hot chocolate, I'm already planning my return trip!

Melbourne, Alice Springs, Perth - December 1996

In the mid 1990's I bought myself a 'troopie' which was part of the family for over ten years and 300,000 plus kilometres. One of the first big trips we did was a trip up to Broome from Melbourne, if we had of gone by the most direct route there and back it would have been a round trip of about 10,000 kilometres, however we decided to make it more interesting. We thought it would be a good idea to take Sam's parents over to visit relatives in Perth, on the way we made a small detour to Central Australia for a bit of a poke around. This blog is my recollections of the first half of the trip from Melbourne to Perth, once again I'll issue the disclaimer that this trip happened nearly twenty years ago and my memory is getting a bit hazy.

The entrance to John's dugout in Coober Pedy.

John tending his garden of cacti, the author had a little more hair in those days!

Inside the store room of Johns dugout, want an extension, just start digging.

Our first objective on the trip was to catch up with an old workmate of mine, John worked for me for quite a few years before deciding to head up to Coober Pedy and try his luck mining for opals. Coober Pedy is a hot, dry, desolate place, not the place I'd normally expect an Englishman like John to head to, but John was always very eccentric. After dropping Sam's parents, Wendy and Barry off at the underground motel, Sam and I headed over to find John. John proudly gave us a tour of his dug out home and then took us to check out another more palatial home that he was minding, it was great to catch up with one of the older guys that I used to work with, John hadn't struck it rich yet and probably never would, but he was living the dream and I gotta respect that.

Wendy and Barry at the Desert Cave Hotel.

Sam's looking pretty tired after our drive up from Melbourne, Desert Cave Hotel, Coober Pedy.

By the time Sam and I turned of the light in our crypt like underground room at the Desert Cave Hotel we had been on the go for almost twenty four hours, so we slept well in the pitch black room. Suitably refreshed next morning we checked out the Old Timers Mine in Coober Pedy before heading up the highway to Yulara and our accommodation at Sails in the Desert Hotel, this place was special to Sam and I as we'd spent part of our honeymoon here.

Barry at the Northern Territory border.

Doing what tourists do at Kulgera.

Uluru, always feels special.

At the base of the climb, no climbing today though.

Mutitjulu Waterhole at Uluru.

Once we were settled in our new digs we spent the next couple of days checking out Uluru and Kata Tyuta, I've visited these places well over a dozen times and something keeps drawing me back every few years, its easy to understand how that the indigenous people would consider them sacred sites. We did the walk around the rock, as well as the valley of the winds walk at Kata Tyuta, during the middle of the day we retreated to the pool to escape baking summer heat ( I didn't mention that we were up there in December did I?).

That'd be me in my natural environment, water!

Walpa Gorge Walk, Kata Tyuta.

Barry and Wendy happy after summiting on the Walpa Gorge Walk.

Kata Tyuta from the Docker River Road.

From Yulara we made the short (in Australian terms) 300 kilometre journey over to Kings Canyon Resort, once again revisiting a place we stayed on our honeymoon. We managed to complete the Garden of Eden loop walk with Wendy and Barry, six kilometres in 40 + C was a pretty good effort I thought, even if we did have a swim in the rock pool half way around. Central Australia was probably looking as dry as I'd seen it on this trip, and even the rock hole at the Garden of Eden was looking a bit festy, although not festy enough to keep me out of the water.

Kings Canyon.

The stairs behind are leading down into the Garden of Eden.

Looking back down Kings Canyon from the top of the waterfall below the Garden of Eden.

Almost back to the air conditioner.

A Ghost Gum on the loop road.

Leaving Kings Canyon we picked up our permit and continued around the Mereenie Loop Road (which I think is called the Red Centre Way now), to Mpulungkinya or as its more commonly called Palm Valley. Parking the troopie we dragged Barry and Wendy on another six kilometre walk through the palm filled gorge, this was the first time I've been here when there wasn't any surface water to be seen, the country was very dry.

Taking in the view from the lookout on the Mereenie Loop Road.

Palm Valley was as dry as I'd ever seen it.

Sam with her mum and dad.

Heading back to the troopie at Palm Valley.

About to make the final descent at Palm Valley.

On the drive out of Palm Valley.

Setting up in Alice Springs for a few days we did some day tours out of town in between laying by the pool at the hotel. We checked out Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, before spending a few hours swimming at Ellery Creek Big Hole (about the only place with surface water). The next day we headed out to Chambers Pillar in the late afternoon, unfortunately a little too late as we got there just as the last of the light was going, it was still an enjoyable trip and we had a nice picnic as the night took over. On our last day we went out to the Eastern Macdonnell Ranges and checked out Trephina Gorge before heading really remote out to Ruby Gap Nature Park. The trip out was low range a lot of the way and there wasn't a drop of water to be found but we managed to find some shady trees to eat under, a few years later Sam and I would return here and be thwarted by too much water.

Larapinta Drive and the Western MacDonnell Ranges.

Standley Chasm.

Rainbow Valley.

The track out to Chambers Pillar.

Chambers Pillar just on dusk.

Rough going on the track out to Ruby Gap Gorge.

The driver doesn't appear to be taking it to seriously! 

Sam just loves opening these cow cocky gates, on the road out to Ruby Gap Nature Park.

Leaving Alice Springs we pointed the troopie towards Perth, first up we had to traverse the Great Central Road down to Kalgoorlie, a journey that had to be completed in a day due to Barry's aversion to camping and also the fact that I'd had to nominate the day of travel on our permit from the lands council ( in those days you had to apply for a permit to cross certain indigenous lands, it may be different on the Great Central Road today, I'm not sure).  After a quick stop to check out Lasseters Cave we pushed on down the relatively good dirt road.

A bit of traffic on the Great Central Road.

Giddy up.

Crossing into Western Australia.

Near the border on the Great Central Road.

Time for a pit stop near Warakurna.

The main interest today was whether the brewing storm clouds would dump on us and if so what it would do to the road, well the answer to the first part of the question was yes the clouds would drop their load on us, the road quickly resembled a lake in parts and we spent an enjoyable half an hour sliding along the red earth road spending more time sideways than straight ( well I was having fun anyway ). As quickly as it came down it went however and we were soon kicking up a long cloud of dust again. Just on dark after around 1100 kilometre of dirt, sand, mad, rocks and corrugations we made it to the bitumen near Laverton, all that was left now was to truck on into the night for another 330 kilometres down to Kalgoorlie, we eventually got to our motel just on midnight on what had been a fairly epic day.

What are the chances of rain in the desert in summer? Pretty good by the look of it.

hmmm......

Hey Sam, you just walk across and take a photo!

Next day after a bit of a late start we completed the journey to Perth, pulling up at Barrys sisters place in the Perth Hills in the late afternoon. Sam and I spent a few days chilling out here before we resumed our journey up to Broome on our own, Wendy and Barry enjoyed some time with family until we returned to pick them up for the return journey.

Late in the day on the Great Central Road, looks like Wendy is trying to escape from the back of the troopie.

The end of this part of the journey, Boya in the Perth Hills.

The Dirt.
I've included links to some of the places we stayed so I wont go over them again here.
The troopie, as usual didn't miss a beat in the 7000 kilometres so far.
The Great Central Road required a permit from Central Lands Council to traverse it, it was a long dirt road but it wasn't too bad, there was fuel every 300 kilometres or so if you needed it and we past a handful of vehicles over the course of the day. Rain makes thing interesting so check conditions before setting off. I've heard that there are plans to seal this road so go now while its still a bit of an adventure.
We did three of the best short walks in Australia in my opinion, on this trip. The walk around the base of the rock, the Valley of the Winds walk at Kata Tyuta, and the walk through Palm Valley are all world class and as they are all around six kilometres in length they are easily achievable to most people.
I've now written up the second part of this journey here, if you want to go straight to it.

Enjoying some shade at Ruby Gap.

Plenty of sand but no water unfortunately.