Hotel Austral Ushuaia

... and done a small trek on a small island to get a great 360 degree view of the mountains and the city.<br><br>Walked around town for a bit and brought some new walking shoes as I was sick of slipping on the ice covered footpaths.<br><br>Saw a man made snow board ramp being set up in one of the streets.<br><br>Ate some calafate chocolate which is made from a small berry that only grows in that area.<br><br>Went on a tour at night time. First went for a snow walk ...

... over it's hearty stews and courting it's local brews. Unsurprisingly, from the deep orange glow of a cosy Irish Bar, the next chapter of my adventure was fuzzily created. We struck up a certain 'je nes sais quoi' with a crew of French yachties, who were heading out of the Beagle towards the Atlantic the following day. They mentioned their first stop as being a destination I was incredibly eager to reach. <br><br>Ushuaia, whilst being the furthest city south, is ...

... 23, yes i said 23 and he runs a favella of over 1 million,every 700 excesting favella are runed by difrent gaings and ther always in fights againts one another. Are tour guyd explaind that, they don´t like the gaigs, but they really do take care of ther township, example, if someone dair´s to rep or still of one off ther township member´s, the pennalty is 2 broken risk´s and both legs shot.Its brutal but it works. The quality of life ...

... to go on a peninsula tour, and again saw sea lions, seals, elephant seals, penguins, birds, we got to snorkel in the freezing water to see absolutely nothing (there was a slight chance of swimming with a seal.. so I was all for it) and that's about it. The other group got to see Killer Whales.. we weren't so lucky :( Well that's it for now.. One more day in Ushuaia, and then we're off to Torres something or rather. More hiking!.. so If I don't make it.. it's been nice knowing you all! :)

... we hiked through the whole park in less than a day) - I'd recommend that if you have the choice to visit the national park during the week since it gets a little crowded on weekends (at least the camping/grilling areas) . Only on the short routes we met a couple people - the longer ones seemed quite empty ... Even though we have midsummer here Ushuaia can get a little chilly - at the end ...

... me dress as it was very hard in the wind plus a seal wasnt too happy as I was in his comfort zone and was bearing his teeth doing a false charge towards me as I was dressing, we had priority on the zodiacs back to the boat. Susie climbed up to Neptues window while on the island,, After lunch we go to half moon bay our last landing before heading into the Drake passage for the wild ride back to Ushuaia,

... we are surrounded by mountains. It is beautiful here though, the tops of the mountains are snow peaked and the temperature is much cooler than BA - hurrah :o) The flight here was interesting, I am not a big fan of flying it has to be said, so when we checked in and Jon said he thought we might be on a small plane I wasn't really feeling very calm. At the gate you couldn't see the plane which was probably just as well. We reached it by bus and as it travelled ...

... of different species of birds including Caracara aand Maca Grebe. The tour ended at the pier. This is a small town and very rugged looking. Today it is the jumping off point for many Antarctic expeditions, and a stop for cruise ships; there were 3 in port today (Insignia, Marco Polo and Silver Cloud). Ushuaia had started as ...

... at 1605 we let go our lines and backed away from the berth. With the bow clear from the end of the berth the captain swung the vessel round to port to point us back out into the Beagle Channel At 1755 we disembarked our Argentinean pilot and the Chilean pilots took over once more to guide us along the Beagle Channel, past the various glaciers on our starboard side as we headed<br>towards the narrow Canal Cockburn."<br>