Sydney, the Blue Mountains and a great big hole

I’ve tried, but I really can’t think why a civilised country would need to have the thermostat set at 28 centigrade all the time. Being just a simple wee Scotsman and I feel like I’m melting most of the time, so the key this past week has been “low energy activities.” If they happen to involve sitting taking in the view with a beer from a bar in the Rocks, or seeing King Lear at the Opera House, all the better.

Opera House abstract

I’ve got to admit that I like Sydney much more than I thought that I would. It’s a great city, with plenty to do and a cracking atmosphere. It’s also a good place to wander around with a camera, as made evident by the hoards of photographers at the more popular sites. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, that: you pick out a nice composition in the afternoon and return at sunset, only to arrive there and find your shot full of people with tripods! I’m not really sure I understand why either: all these people with big fancy cameras lined up on the very last rock before the water’s edge, with nothing but open water between them and the opera house and the harbour bridge. How can they not see that they are standing on the perfect foreground?!

Ah well, back for sunset then, when it’s nice and cool….

I also took a brief jolly into the Blue Mountains this week, so called because the mist of oils from the eucalyptus trees that hangs in the air makes them look blue, and because everything else for hundreds of miles around is pancake-flat.

You could argue that the Three Sisters (above) are the New South Wales equivalent of the Torres del Paine. There are pictures of them everywhere you go in Sydney: in the tourist shops and agencies, in the train stations, on bill-boards…. If there’s one place* outside the city that you simply must visit, it’s the Three Sisters. Measured against the Torres del Paine, they hardly even register. In fact, having just come from Patagonia the Blue Mountains on the whole really don’t make the grade in the mountain stakes.

But what’s in a name? Call them the Little Blue Hills with Trees On and it’s another story: what they lacks in drama, majesty and ruggedness they compensate for in atmosphere, mellowness and being a much more reasonable temperature than Sydney. It might not be somewhere that I’ll be rushing back to, but I throughly enjoyed my day walking along the cliffs of the plateau.

I also took the time to visit another star attraction of the area: the Jenloan Caves. These caves have been a tourist attraction since around the 1830′s, and it’s easy to see why. I’ve been down a few holes in my life, but I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a more spectacular cave system. The limestone formations are as varied as they are incredible, as beautiful as they are difficult to photograph. I gave it my best shot though, just or you guys.

*one place that’s not a beach anyway….

preparing to copy 11,997 items… hasta luego Patagonia

You’d think it’d be easy, this travelling lark. Thing is that I’ve only managed to catch three out of six flights that I’m supposed to have caught so far…. Sure, there may have been some extenuating circumstances, but it’s starting to feel like amateur night on the open road. The Easter Island trip was cancelled on account of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, which is fair enough, but I was also supposed to be landing in New Zealand a few days ago.

Those of you that follow the SPOT maps will no doubt have noticed that this didn’t happen.

I’m not 100% clear on why. I spent a considerable time on the phone to various people at the Quantas call centre in London and they sort of, hazily, hinted that perhaps the plane might have been broken in the ‘quake. Maybe? They didn’t seem to know very much about very much to be honest: when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it to New Zealand, they offered me the opportunity to fly direct to Sydney instead… provided I could meet the flight in Los Angeles. I had to gently point out to the girl on the phone that I was as close to Los Angeles as she was to Cape Town, and suggest that perhaps something leaving from the same continent might be more convenient.

Which took me back through Buenos Aires again: the home of Tango. Being astonishingly bad at dancin’ (no matter who’s askin’) I opted to take in a show rather than a lesson….

Buenos Aires is a pretty special city, so it was good to spend a couple of days there before heading off to Oz. It’s a vibrant place, full of life and energy, and I even managed to find an English guidebook for Australia, which will be handy now that I’m to spend more than the planned three days here. Considering my recent run of luck I also picked up a portable hard drive to back up the Patagonian files. It’ll be put in the post home just as soon as the 11,997 files have been copied! I guess that’s what happens when you’re shooting timelapse sequences (oh, didn’t I mention them?). Flicking through them has given me the chance to look back over the last few months and has made me think….

It’s been an exceptionally frustrating few weeks: I was ready to leave South America almost three weeks ago. I felt that I’d achieved what I came here to do and was really looking forward to moving on with the journey. Missing Easter Island was a blow, but missing New Zealand as well… well that’s seems kind of harsh! (life, eh?) I think what’s really frustrating me is that juggling travel plans hasn’t really allowed me to make the most of still being here: it’s a big place and getting around takes time. But as I sit here surrounded by camera gear, cables and hard drives it seems to me that things aren’t that bad really. It’s still a criminal shame to have to waste the best part of two weeks faffing – that’d be a good holiday at any other time in my life – but damn, I got lucky along the rest of the way!

Looking back, there have been some exceptional times in Patagonia, a great many experiences that I’ll never forget. I’m also happy with what I’m coming back with for the Lakes Exchange exhibition in the Theatre by the Lake in May. Since I arrived in Australia a couple of hours ago I gues I now have everything that I will be using in the exhibition: I’ll certainly keep taking photos and posting them here but they will fall outside the remit for the project. I’ve got to admit that I’m a little bit sad to see the end of this stage of the project – the pressure might be off for a while, but it has been a real joy to work on it this last three months. Heading out into an unknown landscape renowned for it’s fickle weather with limited time in the hope to find material worthy of the project was quite intimidating three months ago. Reviewing the material now I think that it’s paid off and now that the images are in the bag I’m really looking forward to seeing it all coming together alongside Jaime’s work when in may.

I’m painfully aware that the blog has been long on excuses and short on photographic content this last few weeks, but bear with me! I’m working on it; let me find my feet and get back in the game. Somehow missing Easter Island came good when I got to paddle the Futaleufu instead: not much in the way of photos that would interest many of you, but it was some of the best kayaking I’ve ever done and I loved every minute of it. So far missing New Zealand hasn’t worked out as well, with only a few days in Mendoza to show for it (about two weeks short of the time you’d need to try Aconcagua, though the day cycling round the vineyards wine tasting was… amusing). With any luck I can pull something worthwhile out the bag in Oz to go some way towards making up for it. Browsing my shiny new guidebook on the plane, I don’t think it should be that hard to find something worthwhile!

In the mean time, it’s been a long day: a big night out last night followed by a fourteen hour flight in the morning so it’s all a bit fuzzy round the edges at the moment. I’ve no real idea what the next few weeks will bring.

I do know this though: I will return to Patagonia again someday.

interesting times

I guess it’s not going to be news to anyone, but there’s been a bit of an epic earthquake over here over the weekend. Thanks to everyone that got in touch to see if I was ok: I am, indeed, just fine and sitting drinking yet more coffee in a cafe several hundred miles from the area that has been worst hit by the quakes. The only real effect that we felt on Chiloe was a brief rumble and power and communications blackout for most of the day.

Getting up in the morning with no power isn’t (as far as I can tell) that unusual on Chiloe. Parts of the Island only have power at certain times of the day anyway, running to a schedule, so I didn’t even immediately assume that the lack of electricity was down to what had felt like a minor tremor through the night. I certainly wasn’t worried about anything and never even considered taking the SPOT with me, which as it happens would have saved a lot of worry for the family back home! It wasn’t until much later in the day when I got back from the tour I’d gone on that I learned how bad the earthquakes were. Given that a lot of the worry was about tsunamis it is perhaps slightly ironic that I spent a fairly dull hour sitting on the beach at the pacific coast mid-afternoon.

I’ve heard from most of the people that I’ve met travelling recently that could have been in the area of the quakes, with the exception of a couple that I spent some time with last week who were starting work in Conception on thursday. I’m sure that they’ll be fine, they’re probably just a bit too busy (or unable) to get in touch with a random lad they only met for a few days. I know that Jaime is waiting to hear from some of his family in Santiago – all the best lad! I’m sure that they’ll be fine, but it can’t be nice waiting for word.

That aside, the only immediate implications it has for me is that my travel plans have all just gone right out the window. I was meant to arrive in Santiago yesterdeay, which obviously isn’t happening since the roads are mostly rubble. I was meant to be flying out of Santiago tomorrow morning to Easter Island, but that’s not going to happen now either: even if the airport is open I still can’t get there. I’ve tried to change my flights to get to New Zealand a bit earlier, but that was always a bit optimistic and is definitely not going to happen, so I’ve got the best part of two weeks with no plans. I’m sure that I’ll think of something!

Given the chaos north of here I really can’t complain too much.

While I think about it, here’s a few pictures from Chiloe….

Cheers folks! Stay safe.

and… relax.

It’s been a pretty good few months, but it’s hard work this holiday stuff. My poor wee knees are feeling the pace, and were just about ready to start some kind of strike action if I hadn’t taken some time out. Which is why I’ve found myself chilling out in Pucon for most of the last week.

It´s a good base for outdoor activities, or just for chilling out on the black volcanic sands by the Lake. I found myself getting back in a kayak (on a river) for the first time in around three years, which was brilliant! It really made me remember why I used to love it, so I’m looking forward to getting to New Zealand to give it another whirl. I even went for a wee wander up the local volcano the other day.

Ok, I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t that thrilled with the volcano, but that’s probably my own fault for expecting too much. Everyone raves about it here, but at the end of the day I’ve come to Patagonia on a walking holiday/photo mission, spending most of the last two months walking in some of the most magnificent landscapes you could ever hope for and for the most part doing it in perfect solitude. To ascend Volcan Villarica have to go with a guided group and after the last two months I found walking a snail’s pace, nose-to-tail up the hill kind of trying. It became so monotonous and mindless that the guy behind me kept walking into my rucksack every time we stopped.

That said, the views really were stunning. Particularly early in the day when we had a perfect cloud inversion for sunrise.

Perhaps I’m also judging it a little harshly as I’d really hoped to see some magama bubbling in the crater at the top of the volcano. Unfortunately the levels are apparently quite low at the moment and all we really got at the top was a whole lot of extremely noxious gas. On the whole it was still a worthwhile experience, and I’m glad that I went up; it just didn’t quite rate on the same scale as some other recent outings!

Tomorrow I backtrack a little down Chile to Chiloe, a large island near Puerto Montt. I’ve really not much clue what I’m going to do when I get there, but that’s because I’ve been doing some serious relaxing rather than thinking about things this last week. It’s been great, and I’m sure that Chiloe will take care of itself when I get there. I understand that it’s a particularly mellow and pretty place to visit, so I’m trusting that my return to The Mission won’t be too much of a shock to the system!

In the mean time, I took a stroll along the beach form town this evening. It might have been intented to be a week off from the photography mission, but it’s still a very pretty place to be….

Seven Lakes and Osorno again

Well, it’s got to be said that the weather over the last few days has been in stark contrast to what I experienced the last time I went out for a walk! It’s been clear blue skies and blazing sunshine all the way. Having taken on a bit of a stinking head cold and throat infection, either due to sharing dorms all the time or being wet for 48 hours straight last week, I was exceptionally glad to have the offer to join a couple that I met on the Navimag for a couple of days: more banter, less exertion!

We took in El Bolson, around 150km south of Bariloche, and spent the afternoon being typical tourists around the artesan markets for the day rather than flogging ourselves in the hills. Well, ok, we did make it up a short walk to visit the site of an old forest fire where artists from around the world come to carve the dead trees into all manner of forms. Well worth the trip.

The next day Dave and Augustine decided to hold onto their rental car and we took in a fair portion of the “Seven Lakes” circuit. We managed around five of the seven, but given my inclintion for peering at rocks for hours on end through a viewfinder, and the fact that Augustine (being a photography teacher back in Oz) was similarly motivated, we did really quite well. Dave is clearly possessed with the patience of a saint….

The scenery was stunning, and constantly changing. It was quite astonishing just how much the landscape changed in the course of the day – you could have been forgiven for thinking that you were a world away from where you had sat for lunch just a half an hour previously….

And it was nice to be out with another photographer again. I really enjoy working on my own; landscape photography is a solitary pursuit for the most part. But every now and again, it’s good to get out in the hills with another photographer, and after two and a half months of solo trekking and shooting it was great to have a day out with someone else that shared a common agenda: going back to town with a good shot in the bag.

Ironically, after battling with the wind and rain for the best part of a month, the empty blue skies and the harsh, hard light made it hard to bring the best out of the landscape. I think it would take months of exploring and waiting for the right light to do the area that we covered in that one day any real justice, but we had a throughly enjoyable day out and if Dave and Augustine happen to read this, thanks again!

Dave in a Cave!

I have now returned to Osorno in Chile to attempt the walk around the Banos De Caulle, which I abandoned a week and a half ago due to the horseflies. I’ve been reliably informed that they should have been gone by the end of Jan, so with any luck they won’t be as bad now. That said, I’ve also been reliably informed that they’ll still be out in force. There was a fair few of them at the border crossing from Argentina this afternoon, so I’m not holding out too much hope but I’ll give it a go anyway, as I really want to see this place. I’ve suddenly realised that I’ve only got a few weeks left in Patagonia and there’s still a huge list of things to do, places to see and pictures to take. If this walk doesn’t come off this time around, I’m not wasting any more time on it, I’ll just move onto the next think on the wish-list.

Don’t sweat the small stuff!

Not quite the Nahuel Huapi Traverse

I should have known that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride when the bus to the start of the trek didn’t stop to pick me up: the world was trying to tell me something. If that wasn’t hint enough that I should stay in town, the fact that the cable car wasn’t running should have been.

To be fair, the first day’s walking was very pleasant. A nice traverse along a rocky, windy ridge. Then I dropped down into a beautiful valley below Cerro Catedral to camp for the night. It rained most of the night, and I staying in the tent until late morning in the hope that it’d stop. In the end I got tired of waiting and wrestling with my broken stove (I’d carried my stove on the Helio Sur trek as a back up in case the one provided by El Chalten Mountain Guides broke. It did on the second day, and we used mine – I forgot to swap them back after the trek). I decided that the weather in Patagonia had been consistently inconsistent, and it was bound to stop raining soon and I should start walking.

Apparently I was wrong: the weather here can stay the same for a whole day.

The paths became stream, the streams became torrents. The rivers… well I’d tell you about some of the crossings, but my mum reads this. After a little more than 6 hours walking and scrambling over two passes in the rain I arrived at Refugio San Martin and decided that I didn’t really want to camp. Everything I had was saturated – even the gear that hadn’t left my bag all day. I was soaked to the skin despite being gore’d head to toe and I had to borrow some trousers from the lost and found box….

The next morning however, was utterly stunning! Not exactly clear blue skies, but patchy blue and all the prettier for it. The wind was still fierce, blowing my tripod over down by the lake. That combined with a fresh dump of snow meant that it would have been reckless to try the next stage of the trek, which was a long, exposed ridge. I decided to bail and return to Bariloche, tail between my legs, and dry myself out.

It’s a shame really, but that’s just the way it goes I guess. At least when I go out again I’ll have dry kit and (hopefully) a stove that works. There’s al dente and there’s crunchy….

High seas and horse flies….

It’s been a while since I posted, and a while since I pushed the button on the SPOT (sorry!). Ok, so there was a half-hearted push a few days ago but that was it…. There’s been a few involuntary changes in plan over the last week!

Last time I posted I was about to get on the Navimag from Perto Natales to Puerto Montt. Once again the Patagonian weather flexed it’s muscles and reinforced it’s authority over the trip. The views on the first day were stunning despite the low cloud and rain. After that there weren’t many people well enough to make it out of their bunks, even if there had been anything to see through rain and fog! We had to sail in circles for 14 hours before entering the open water the seas were so high….

On arriving in Puerto Montt, gateway to the Chilean Lake District, I’d planned on a four to five day walk taking in some hot springs, geysers, bubbling mud pools… All the stuff that’s nit been seen in the English lake district for quite some time! The problems started when I went for a wee day hike with some people I met on the ferry….

In all my life I have never experienced anything like the plague of horse-flies that we encountered. By the end of it we each had our own personal swarm of around 200 flies, each a little over a half inch long and yes, they bit. Back in town I asked around and they were still bad on the route I wanted to do.

I’m all got suffering for your art, but you’ve got to draw a lone somewhere. I’m afraid that’s mine, firmly etched in the insect-ridden sand. I have retreated to Argentina again where the flies aren’t as bad. I’ll go back to Chile in a couple of weeks to do the route when the flies should be dying off: they only last a month or so, they’re just a little late this year.

In the mean time, I’m starting another route tomorrow. I’d planned on doing it anyway, so this is more of a re-shuffle than anything else: an inconvenience. I’ll fire up the SPOT again sometime tomorrow and I’ve a wee bag full of freshly charged batteries for the camera.

It’ll be good to be back on the hill!

In the meantime, here’s a few snapshots fron the last week. I’m uploading from my phone for the first time, so forgive me if the quality isn’t up to scratch – it’s an experiment!

the Helio Sur

Technically, I guess it was a walk in the Park, though it certainly wasn’t your average sunday afternoon stroll….

I also suppose that I might have been slightly naive in my reasons for going on the trip. I was sitting on the bus on the way back to Chalten and I decided that I really wanted to be able to see and to photograph Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre from the other side: from the ice field. As good a reason as any, but the circuit has so much more to offer than just that!

Fitz Roy from the front

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that confident that we’d make it when we left Chalten. The weather forecast wasn’t promising and the first day’s walking saw us meet two other groups that were attempting the same route as us. All of them were retreating. One of them had spent a few days in the refugio on the Marconi Pass before bailing out, the other group had their tent destroyed by the wind at the first campsite.

Valle Electrico from the first camp

The trend continued the next day, with another couple of groups retreating off the Marconi Glacier as we ascended towards it: despite the reports from these groups of bad conditions, and the uninspiring weather forecast that we had, we had started so we might as well try to get up the pass anyway. It was a bit breezy on the way up, but we chanced upon an absolute gift: a perfectly constructed snow shelter left by a party of Russians that had passed through the day before (we could tell it was them by the litter they had left – good skills with the construction of the shelter, but not much in the way of respect for the landscape). We camped there, right in the middle of the Marconi Pass that night.

In fact, we spent a few days camped there, pinned down by the weather. Occasional breaks would allow me to sneak out with the camera, and as luck would have it, we even got a peek at Fitz Roy through the clouds on the first night. After two days stuck in the same spot, we decided to take advantage of a brief break in the weather to move to a refugio an hour’s walk away (not being sure that the tent would survive another night). We might have been in a bit of a rush to get the tent down and the gear sorted, but I managed to snatch a few quick shots while the weather was good – I got the shot of Fitz Roy from behind that I’d wanted!

Fitz Roy from behind

The refugio provided some welcome shelter, and more exceptional views over the Ice Field. The relatively calm weather lasted long enough to get some shots at dusk, before darkness fell and the wind returned. Definitely a good decision to abandon the camping that night!

The next morning the weather had broken, so we made a break for it. Most groups camp half way down the Ice Field, with the possibility of exceptional views of Cerro Torre. By the time we got there around 2pm, the wind had returned and we had to carry on. It seemed that I was going to miss out on the other half of my original reason for being there but as we plodded on in the snow shoes, the clouds parted just briefly…. I’m not sure if it was the summit of Cerro Torre or Cerro Egger that poked briefly through the hole in the clouds, but it made my day anyway! It lasted just a few seconds – no time to get the camera out – but for some reason I’m ok with that. I’d set my heart on seeing it, and over the four days leading up to it had slowly resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. Happening to glance up the one time that it peeked through seemed like a gift: perhaps a reward for having made the effort when everything seemed stacked against us.

And to be honest, there was so much more out there to enjoy out there that if I hadn’t seen it, it would still have been an amazing trip. The 60 to 70 mph winds (gusting lord knows what!) meant that it wasn’t easy or practical to stop and spend a lot of time setting up a photo, but the views really were stunning. I’ve nothing that really does the day justice, and I’m not a good enough writer to express it properly, so you’ll just have to take my word for it this time.

As Adrian said after the trip: everyone makes it round the circuit when the conditions are good. Not many make it when the weather’s like what we encountered. It might not have leant itself to working the angles photographically, but I’ve still come back with a few images I love, the satisfaction of actually having to work a little to complete the route, and with a couple of new friends. All in all, I think the job’s a good ‘un!

new friends

A big vote of thanks to Carl and to the team at El Chalten Mountain Guides, and particularly to our guide Adrian who had the faith to keep going with us when other’s were turning back – cheers lad!

A fly in the ointment….

It’s not been that easy getting here. I had to pay an extortionate price for a RIB to myself across the Beagle Channel and when I arrived my arranged transport from Puerto Navarino to Puerto Williams broke down in a distinctly unsubtle, people racing with fire-extinguishers kind of way. All in all I’ve travelled around 450 miles south from the last place that I actually really wanted to see, all just to hike the most southernly, most isolated and one of the most lonely established trails in the world: the Dientes Circuit.

As far as I can make out from the list at the local police station there are around 5 people on it at the moment, which is not really that many for a five day walk. I’ve been looking forward to this since I left the UK: complete solitude. Not even so much as a trail or an established path, just a rough route in the wilderness of the last inhabited island before Cape Horn. Tonight at the hostel a group of around 35 to 40 Americans turned up for dinner….

They’re “doing the Dientes” tomorrow.

Gutted? Not even close.

I’m not trying to be anti-social here; it’s just that some time completely on my own, completely self sufficient in a proper wilderness was the whole point of this trek – I even stayed another day in town because I heard that there was a sole Kiwi lad coming to start the circuit today. Sure enough there was and I personally walked him out of town this afternoon. Ok, I walked him out the wrong end of town, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out at some point…. (it really wasn’t intentional)

After a couple of hours fretting about it, I asked just exactly what the group’s plans were, thinking that I could perhaps wait an extra few days for them to get enough of a head start that I didn’t have to see them. Thankfully, it sounds like the group is only hiking the first day of the circuit and spending three days camping in the same spot, doing short day hikes from there every other day. Better yet, they’re doing the low-level alternative route to day one, so if I stick to my intended route I might not see them at all, particularly as their intended campsite lies before the two trails converge.

How that campsite will cope with a group that large for three nights straight remains to be seen: everyone I’ve talked to that’s done the trail says that there’s hardly enough dry ground to pith the one tent: these are not “campsites” as such: no toilets or shower, just an outside chance at a patch or roughly level ground. You can make what you want of the fact the the group is a univeristy field trip from a Texas university studying Ecological Philosophy….

I’ve been looking forward to this trail, anticipating it to be one of the highlights of what’s already a rather exceptional trip. It’s got the potential to be someting that I’ve never experienced before just on the basis of being so remote, so isolated and so personal. To have to share it with a huge group like that would change it from what I’ve been looking forward to to the point that I’m not sure I’d want to do it: certainly it would still be a nice experience, but it wouldn’t be what I came here for.

Nevertheless, I’ll still leave tomorrow but not as early as planned and if I do end up meeting up with the University group I’ll probably come back to town. I like to think I’m a sociable kind of a guy, but I’ve come here with a clear idea of how I want to approach this outing and I’m quite happy to wait to achieve that if I have to. No great hurry. Worst case, it gives me another few days to keep trying to find a boat to Cape Horn.

I’ll make sure that I have the SPOT on tracking when I leave, so if I turn back it should be obvious!

Happy New Year folks!

I trust that there are a fair few well-earned headaches out there today and that you all had a good time. Ushuaia turned out to be a great place to see in the New Year.

It’s been an overtly touristy week, ticking the Penguin and Sealion boxes and taking in a short day hike in the hills above the city. Chile and Argentina not being grown-up enough to agree on terms for a regular passenger service, I’ve resorted to the James Bond approach with a chartered RIB across the Beagle Channel to get to Puerto Williams tomorrow morning. From there I’m hoping to take in the Dientes Circuit, a 5 to 7 day trek, depending on the weather….

I’ll let you know how it goes, and hopefully have some good pictures for you when I get back. In the mean time, here’s a few new friends….