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The day begins dull. Full cloud cover, though with a yellow glow through the trees: an indication that it's thin cloud. Thin cloud my hope that the dry weather isn't going to break.

My tent is a very comfortable nomadic home. What more could one ask but a roomy living space wherein I cook and write this journal. And yesterday evening drank wine watching the last embers of the day fade. A comfortable bed too. I feel I have all. Something that gets me though is car drivers always ask, aren't you cold at night. That's about the level of there understanding on modern technical camping insulation. Most see camping out as a summertime only activity.

Anyway, in the morning, the tent has to be emptied of it's furnishing, taken down and loaded on the bike. This morning I'm not too late.

I think I must be getting the hang of riding this rough unsealed road, as the first couple of hours I zip along, holding a pace of about twelve kilometres an hour. I know what it is, it's the surface is fairly good, well so far: a far cry from tarmac nevertheless, as I've to weave in and around a steady succession of potholes; and the road champers or slopes away to the side, meaning the only place to ride is the middle. Frustrating whenever a car comes along in any direction: there being quite a few tour mini-buses, perhaps because it's the weekend. And of course the local delivery people who race by in a cloud of dust. They've a living to earn. Time is money and the more runs they make, the more money.

The road follows a narrow valley with wooded hills to the side; snaking up and down, each steep incline is followed by a steep decline back to zero. At one point, I pass a sign announcing: Rio Murto. The name of the next village. The road pass the sign going dramatically downhill to the green river split into channels by grey gravelbars midstream. A colour cantrast with the dark beechwood and grey rock and snow on the mountains beyond.

Ahead a mini-bus with middle-aged tourists are out upon the grassy layby. Reaching them, there's a bit of a rise needing a bit extra vump to get up it. The woman standing at the roadside as I crest the rise shouts out "Vamos!" the equivalent of "Allez" You know this isn't the Tour de France. There are a million other touring cyclists on this road, doing the same thing. That makes me nothing special.

I then pick up the same cycle-tyre tracks, the same patern, two thin tracks in the dust about half a metre apart. It can't be none other than the French couple I caught yesterday.

It is coming up to midday. The cloud has cleared and sunshine warm. At some point I pass the French couple, their bikes at any rate, propped on their stands at the roadside while they must be down by the river lunching. Their sleeping bags spread out over the bikes drying. Then on the opposite side on the approach to a bridge over the river, is an unlocked gate to a track leading along the riverbank to pasture where I myself ride in to lunch.

The afternoon goes fairly quickly. This Rio Murte, or Puerta Murta, is a long way. I'm no where as near as I thought. I'd like to get there and find a shop, to buy nothing much but bread and a carton of wine. I'm frustrated that I'm knocking on at a fair rate and the road still goes on without any sign of the village. Hill after hill.

When at last I reach Puerta Murta, it's a four kilometre detour along a road turning off to the left. Nonetheless, a house by the cross has a sign announcing: Bread and Wine for Sale, where I replenish supplies.

Not far on from there, a branch of Lago Caratera, the second largest lake in South America opens up ahead of me: a turquoise contrast with the red bloom of firebushs. And further the road is pressed in between the lake shore on the left and vertical cuttings in the hillside on the right, just as it is time to look out for a campsite. Any wide level shore area is fenced in pasture, though not always but rocky shore, unproductive wilderness. And with farmhouses every few hundred metres. Even crossing a bridge over a large stream which cascades down the hillside and levels out into the lake with level sward and dwarf beech along it's banks is well fenced in and overlooked by a nearby farmhouse, so no lifting over the fence here. In such a spot in Argentina, there'd be no fence at all. I would have the tent up by now.

A kilometre on however, there's a small Peninsular, near overgrown with briars but with long tussock grass in the centre, where I postage bike and panniers down a tumbling drystone wall through a passage in the briars to. Not too discrete a place being not more than 200 metres from the nearest house, but enough. Though well located with a spellbounding view out over the lake with the mountain's jagged peaks and snowy sides rearing up on the far side.

Again I've the tent pitched with at least three hours of daylight, to write and cook.