The square concrete channel, 1 metre wide by 1 1/2 metres head room, felt grime with raw concrete walls; though underneath the road the occasional truck caused a barely noticeable tremor, such was the insulating qualities of the hardcore overhead. All said, I felt snug in the sleeping-bag looking out at a starry sky; the cloud having cleared.

The morning broke with me looking through the same square hole at a cold pink and blue morning. I dreaded getting out of the warm sleeping-bag; when I did, I quickly pulled on my warm Dunn-jacket; the rest of my warm clothes I already wore including a woolly hat.

After breakfast of porridge and packing ready for the road, I changed to the rain-coat for riding as there is a keen breeze and wind-chill. I had not gotten far when I stop to change into full-finger gloves before my fingertips lost all sensation; luckily, these gloves are really warm and so my hands were instantly snug again.

The landscape remains much as yesterday; rolling plateau, though, around eleven the road dropped down and crossed a lush river valley with a big estancia and I saw grazing cattle, the first I've seen in weeks. There remains a tailwind, though light and hardly noticeable.

I've now stopped for lunch on a little track down from the road to the old narrow gravel road along the fence which preceded the modern paved road. I see traces of this road all along: I can well imagine the mix of horse-drawn and old-style cars that chugged along it in bygone days, which when they met, had to find a passing-place in-order to get by one-another. The verge and where I'm sitting has a lush cover of yellow and white wildflowers and beyond the well weathered wood post and rusty wire fence is the usual yellow tuft grass; the only vegetation cover on gentle rolling hills; darkened by moving shadows of cumulus cloud floating over.

It is still 48km to Rio Gallegos and I'm wondering, or despairing, the possibility of cheap accommodation there; as it's a fair size city so wild camping is perhaps out; and I need to stop there this evening in order to buy a few days food supply for the road South as there's little of nothing for 250km, till Punta Arenas.

The sky is now watery: a few rays of sun still make it through but on the whole it's an increasingly overcast afternoon. An hour after lunch the road drops down a long descent and turns East for the last 25km to Rio Gallegos where I'm now reduced to a laboured crawl battling against a cross-headwind: I countdown every kilometre which is hard won until reaching the city. Off to the right is the continued wall of barrancas and as I get ever nearer the outskirts there's a cement factory, a police training school and then the airport where Ian, the cyclist I met in San Julian, said he slept; perhaps that could be my option for overnighting too.

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Rio Gallegos had a prosperous beginnings in the 1890s as a commercial centre for the big sheep estancias in the area: this was a few decades before the invention of synthetic fibers which most clothing manufacturers use today, and therefore sheep farming and wool was a very profitable business. The other historic connection is the "Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid saga"

They came to town around about 1905 on the pretext of buying land in the area. They were three as "Our little family" as Butch called themselves included the Beautiful Bella Etna Place. They became popular and respected by the locals; and made a habit of galloping wildly into or out of town on horseback shooting in the air, behaviour they planned to use as cover as they weren't the respectable businessmen they'd led folk to believe; they'd come to rob The Bank of London which they'd opened an account with in order to see the lay-out of the interior and delay suspicion; as every detail of the hit was planned with great precision over a period of weeks; including changes of getaway horses along a long trail through the mountains. On the big day, they came out of the bank, got on their horses and rode out of town in a mad gallop with bags of money; of coarse no passerby thought it unusual them riding out of town so fast (this was their normal style) until the alarm was raised by a bank clerk. They had though cut the phone-wires, so they were well gone before a poses followed in pursuit.

I stop at the first service-station on the way into town, as I was famished, and I thought there maybe a change of camping; but it was out of the question, as the rear was all gravel truck-stop without a space to put a tent; besides, it was already in the city and may not be secure: so, I sit in the cafeteria eating enough Empanadas de Carne so I wouldn't have to cook later while I contemplate my next step. I sit a long time using the wifi until a pump-attendant came in and turned the volume on the TV right up, as a football match was starting and it became impossible to hear myself think with that constant Buenos Aires accent commentary. And so it could be heard on the forecourt, the door was left open letting in a cold draft. I was getting cold and I still needed to find a place to sleep.

I cycle onwards on the main trunk-road bypassing the centre and continue onto Route 3 South out of the city. I remember the last time I passed through the city a campsite in that direction. I reach that far, but as there's lots of wasteland in the vicinity and I didn't want to pay 20-30 pesos when I could camp free nearby; so tonight I'm camped along a perimeter fence to something. The nearest buildings are industrial and are about a kilometre away; so although not hidden from view, the distance from possible people is so far as not to be seen.

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