Stories from the road

First things first, I didn’t make it to Ushuaia. Not through accident or mishap or misfortune. It was purely by choice.  The infamous winds in Argentine Patagonia really beat me up, tossing the WR250 around on the corrugated dirt roads and making each kilometre a struggle. Much of the unsealed roads are covered in a…

If you are going to be anywhere in the world when Argentina play France in the World Cup final, it might as well be Villa La Angostura. The small, neat tourist town slotted between Lago Correntoso and Lago Nahuel Huapi in Argentina’s Seven Lakes region is postcard perfect. It’s all mountains with remnants of winter…

It’s about 6am and I’m aboard the Agios, a ferry ship that runs from Puerto Montt to Chaitén in Chile. My goal is the Carretera Austral, aka Route 7, the 1200-odd kilometre road that runs from Puerto Montt to Villa O’Higgins in Chilean Patagonia. The Carretera’s route, scything through valleys, over mountain passes and past…

It was while I was staying at El Rincon (see Grace and Favour) that Don gave me the tip to check out Volcán Antuco and Laguna del Laja. Located about 100km from the El Rincon, it promised to be an easy out and back day run. What I didn’t expect was how bloody spectacular it…

One of the reasons I am doing this trip solo is the freedom. Freedom to go where I want, stop where I want, change plans at the drop of hat and generally run to my own sketchy schedule. One major advantage of travelling solo is that people seem to be more comfortable with wandering up…

My Yamaha WR250R and I were reunited on Thursday 17 November. I’d been waiting in Valparaiso since the previous Saturday for the okay from the freight agents, and on my wanderings had even seen the ship – Seaspan Brightstar – berthed down in the Valparaiso port. The word I’d been awaiting arrived in an email…

It’s 6.45pm in Valparaiso. The days are long in Chile in late Spring, and the sun still shines brightly. The stiff breeze that sprung up about 4pm has abated and the evening has settled into a warm, sunny somnolence. There’s music all around. Up on top of the hill – I think it’s a school…

On November 1, I flew out from Brisbane bound for Santiago in Chile. I’d finished up at work on September 30 and spent the month of October relishing my new status as an unemployed bum. Actually, some parts I enjoyed more than others. There were the necessary but tedious things like sorting my belongings into…

It is difficult to pinpoint the moment I decided to chuck it all in and travel the world on my motorcycle. There was no single, brilliant flash of inspiration, and it wasn’t influenced by a certain (bloody awful) television series with ‘Long Way…’ in the title, as so many people seem to suggest.  No, I’d…