Sun 4th Dec: route 15 Calafate to Lago Roca

December 4, 2016

I am leaving. Everybody else, all the other cyclists I met since the Caratera Austral, are leaving too, moving on. Soon it'll be just me again. I'll miss the cammaradary, if nothing else.

Well, another early start, a cold grey sunless morning, has me shivering in my down-jacket cupping my hands round the stove as it boils water for tea. Raul was in his shirt to begin with, but soon had a thick down-jacket on too.

From seven o'clock I've two hours to kill until La Anomina opens at nine. The others, all French, up early but take a long time packing panniers and taking down tents. Then sit outside reception to use Wi-Fi, as it'll be perhaps a week before they'll have another opportunity to reach the outside world.

I only need a few items such as bread and cake at the supermercado, anyway. As I'll be back in Calafate again tomorrow evening. While pushing the bike along the main street, I meet Frances, Alex, Theo and Michel for what'll be the last time. They tell me today they'll hire a car and drive to the national park to see the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Then it is hard knowing if I've turned off the main street at the right place. It's a steep climb through the streets with no sign to indicate the right way out off town. I stop at a greengrociers to ask where the man says yes I am going the right way for route 15. He gives me a string of turn right then turn left directions, the kind that confuse. Though it was a relieve I's headed the right way. The main thing is I hadn't slogged up one-in-six in places only to go back down again. And soon I see the end of the houses and the unpaved road stretch ahead toward tabular brown hills.

Route 15 and today, sudued low cloud, but remaining calm.

The surface although loose grit and stones is in good order. And there are long sections of compacted clay. Only where it gently ascents is the surface loose, where my rear wheel slides on loose stones to a halt a few times. Hills rise on the left of the road while the ground slopes away on the right to the shore of Lago Argentino, a fair few kilometres off; with subdued light, low cloud looming over the lake's brillant aquamarine sheet of water; as low cloud caresses the top of the hills to the left.

Shortly, the way descends into a small valley to cross Rio Centinale via an old steel girder bridge with wooddeck. The opposite side has a track off along a grassy riverbank which lends itself as a tranquil place to stop for lunch, it now nearly one and there being a vertical bank to take shelter from the blustery breeze.

Mid-afternoon I pass a right turning, route 60, which I'll be taking tomorrow, back to Calafate. Straight on is the remaining 18km of Route 15, to Lago Roca, where this evening, inside the Los Glacieres national park, I'm in an official but free campsite. There are a few campervans, all European. The place is up a slope from the lake, Lago Roca, in amongst dwarf beechwood. There was a view of the Perito Moreno Glacier on the way up from the road junction, but the glacier cannot be seen from here. Apart from that the view is of bumpy hills and mountains beyond; it now quarter pass nine, I'm waiting for the sun to break below the cloud in the open patch of sky over the mountains to the west. There's still time for a walk before dark.

A Southern Crested Caracara. Thanks to Bill Houdley for the id.

The walk turns out to be an adventure in it's self. From the dwarf wooded hilltop where I've camped, a gravel vehicle track continues down what is a great hill pasture field levelling out toward the lake shore, almost a mile away. This far down a big group of Herefords had gathered by the track and when they see me coming along set off in a thundering stamped as if in fright, to a clump of trees yonder. Where they halt and regroup for a moment, then come stampeding back my way, stopping a hundred metres or so off whereupon all stare at me.

I reach the lake shore, well a bit short as it was down a further bank to a stony beach, and take in the late evening light as the sun at last breaks below the cloud, before turning back up the track. When I hear a low bawling of a bull approach from the clump of trees. Come to see what all the commotion was. He doesn't look at all happy, nor am I at this point. I turn off the track away from the bull and take a shortcut, breaking into a run up the field to the wood at the top.

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