The memoriable things about today are the bitter cold wind that blew hard in my face most of the day; and no end of climbing only to swoop down to the start of yet another rise: the trailer wheel blew-out without me having a spare tyre: and I relise, it would be Friday or even Saturday before I would reach Porvenir. But as usual, I began the day camping well hidden away, though there aren't many people to see me down here in anycase.

It was a wet night and I was awakened early by the rain drumming on the tent. "Oh no, got enough food to last riding to Friday, not to spend a day in the tent listening to the rain" I thinking. The rain stopped at eight, and so, I got to repairing yesterday's slow puncher in the tent, then had breadfast of Coffee and Oat biscuits.

Where I'd camped was a wide clearing between two wooded hills with a pond at the lower side which on orriginally seeing it from a distance, I thought was a river and was the main attraction to the place because a river would've provided a source of reasonable clean water. As it was, breakfast depleted the little water I had, but the climate being cold means I don't need much if any, at lease I wouldn't be slugging water during the day, and all I'd drink would be boiled for hot drinks

There wasn't any point in waiting to dry-out the tent this morning as it was a merky grey morning, which meant it wasn't frosty like yesterday but the usual cold wind meant it was cold nevertheless. The cycling couples whom I'd met in Rio Grande, Anna and Allaster, Pradro and Guilaume, remember, that rode this way, remarked on how much better the gravel road was in Chile than in Argentina. Sure enough, this morning there were smooth stretches with occational pot-holes to swerve around; but, there were also stretches where it was uniform rough washboard: as such I was reduced to bumping along at walking pace. There were other stretches where it was a chaos of small stones with only a faint clear track to ride on. But the main hinderance was the constant rises only to quickly swoop down to yet the start of the next rise.

It was soon lunchtime as the road made a long swoop down into a valley to a river: Rio Russfin: here, I refilled on water even-though just up stream was visable the sheds and pipes emmiting steam of a wood processing plant, but the water I reckoned on being OK for cooking. After the bridge, the road turned right and followed the valley where a kilometre later as the day was looking bleaker and more like rain just as the wind was becoming more blustery, I crossed a little height and decended down and through the village of Russfin, which was little more than a scattering of light blue and faded red clap-board houses. And I saw no-one about.

As the wind became more of a formidable headwind, I had the option of ducking into woodland on the slope on the left of the road to eat lunch. On the right was sheep-pasture sloping down to the river where a little way after the village down by the riverbank was a huge rusty bit of machinery. It had a great ellevator angled up; and the front part of the contraption was a traction engine with it's smoke pipe missing. It was a ghostly hulk in the valley's middle. A relic of an industrial past.

The trees provide good shelter to use the stove and relax in which I read a chapter of my book and then when preparing to set-off, oiled the chain and topped up on air. Back on the road, the way ahead reared up out off the valley and away from precieved safety and shelter of woods to open exposed moor, then the rain began to beat down. And as if that wasn't enough, I heard a sudden spist sound of a blow-out. "No, hell-no, now I've problems" Is thinking, as I instantly thought it was the rear wheel had blown-out, due perhaps to being over inflating at lunchtime. But the rear felt fine and it was quickly apparent on glancing down that it was and that actually it was the trailer wheel which had blown; the tyre of which I've noticed has recently developed a bald-patch; but, I had not noticed that it had worn so thin that the inner-tube had began to show. Hence the blow-out

As I was struggling along at barely walking pace due to headwind and terrain which seemed to always be rising, the flat trailer tyre was hardly noticable and in anycase there wasn't any shelter to stop and do a repair.

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

The rain soon stopped and the cloud broke up somewhat with occational spells of sunshine. The view for the better part of the afternoon was limited to looking at the road going up the next rise. But then eventually, I reached the summit of a rise where the view below opened up far and wide. And ahead I could see a sea inlet which gleamed golden in sunshine which broke through between cloud banks in that direction, beyond which was the grey shore and peninsular of the northern half of the island in which Porvenir is located on the outermost western side.

The flat trailer wheel was more noticeable as I descended but not mush as I hung on the brakes all the time as the road was quite rough. On reaching the shore it was time to soon find a place to camp, but there were fences on either side of the road which had turned right and followed paralell to the beach. And furthermore wherever I camped would have to be well sheltered as the now crosswind was quite strong. It didn't go long though until I came to a gravel-pit with sides which both provided cover from the road and a degree of shelter, but not much as the wind came over and down upon the tent anyway and I spend allot of time gathering whatever stones I could get around the pit to put on the fly-sheet flaps as anchorage. And once inside the wind pressed in on the tent such that Is waiting for a tent-pole to break.

Is cold and tired, and my written notes this evening were short and few in which I began, "there comes a time when this is no longer fun.................