Today is Sunday. Bright and early I'm up and out, happy to see the back of Comodoro.

I promise not to mention how windy it is; suffice to say that there is a hill leading west out of the small town of Caleta Olivia about 80km below Comodoro that I remember with great clarity because I could manage no more than 20kmph heading into the wind.

Ruta 3 cut inland. There is very little on the coast to detain you. (Don't mention this to the citizens of Puerto Deseado, down on the coast, who used to be on the main road but were by-passed when Ruta 3 was paved. There is now a spur down to them but with petrol at a premium I wasn't about to go 126km out of my way simply to ride 126km straight back again).

Instead I pressed on past the hamlet of Fitzroy -- named for the captain of The Beagle, a future Governor General of New Zealand and the father of modern meteorology, no less. Fitzroy itself is an underwhelming monument to a great Victorian.

Darwin, Fitzroy and the crew of The Beagle explored the coast here in the first months of 1834. I didn't have so long, and besides, with the Theory of Evolution already worked out, there was nothing for me here but to plunge ahead towards the south.

	Rocky future: Tumbling landprices, great natural beauty and the chance to get away from prying paparazzi. No wonder Sly, Ted Turner, George Soros and others have been busy buying up vast chunks of Patagonian real estate. I didn't come across any of them.

After all, who wants to be kept awake all day by the constant sound of two, maybe sometimes as many as three vehicles an hour?

There aren't even signs of the great sheep herds that keep the farms going. Prices have been decimated since the early decades of the 20th century, and with them the wealth of the ranchers. So there is less incentive to keep huge numbers of sheep. So less money is coming in. Poorer. Less sheep. Less money. Etc. Etc.

All you see from the road are the gated entrances to each estancia, non-descript and in various states of crumbling, tatty disrepair. That and the constant fencing... *everywhere* the fencing. No matter how isolated, the land *belongs* to someone, and no matter that the land isn't being used, they put up fence after fence after fence to make sure *you* can't move more than 20m from the side of the road. Rant over.

I'd filled up with petrol at Caleta. My map indicated that the next petrol was to be found at Tres Cerros, itself nothing more than a pinprick on the map. 15km before Tres Cerros I came across that rarest of beasts, a building by the side of the road. I pulled in. They had a petrol pump. I gestured to Old Father Time as he came out to see what the noise was but he shook his head. 'No petrol, no petrol'.

No problem. I ride on to Tres Cerros: 'Three Hills'. Two petrol pump attendants. One petrol pump. No petrol.

The explanation: 'Well, it's Sunday and we ran out yesterday but we expect another delivery tomorrow. Probably.'

	Stuck! This map is great. It shows *everything* within about 200km of Tres Cerros.

The problem: the next petrol is in Puerto San Julian, about 120km south. I have about 50km worth of petrol left in my tank.

The crux of the matter: I'm stuffed.

The irony: no there is no irony. Maybe the Americans are right?

The false hope: a police post sits across the scrub from the petrol station. But they have no petrol to spare.

The saviours: Javier and XXX are sitting in the petrol station, watching a TV soap.

They overtook me an hour before with a friendly wave, and now that friendliness goes to a whole new level. They offer to load the bike onto their van and drive me down to the next petrol station.

Bloody heroes!

Turns out they work for the provincial Film Commission in Rio Gallegos and are returning from a regular run to the far north of the province. The van is big enough -- just -- to squeeze the bike in, with a little help from the two otherwise redundant petrol attendants. With me perched on the handbrake between the two of them we set off for Puerto San Julian, drinking mate, joking and talking.

You certainly get a different view from the cabin of a van, though I was glad to see the wind still buffeted and rocked us even with four wheels. It was an opportunity to look left and right, drink in the views, and ask questions about what I was seeing... the salt lakes... the guanaco... a small range of hills... life on the estancias... the wind.

My saviours were most interested to hear how well Argentina and in particular Patagonia were known and reported on in Britain and Europe. I had the sad task of letting them know that the entire country barely registers on the radar except during time of flooding, revolution or football.

I brought up the War -- Falklands/ Malvinas, call it what you will -- which seemed pretty apposite given the fact that their home town, Rio Gallegos, was the closest point to the islands on the mainland and had long been their link to the rest of the world... until the War. And with the 20th anniversary coming up attention would focus once again on the Battle for Stanley, Goose Green and the Belgrano...

'No that's all a long time ago. We don't need to be talking about that. What a thought!'

The put-down was good-humoured but insistant. The War was not worth discussing.

(When I eventually got to Rio Gallegos, I found a sculpture dominating the entrance to the town featuring figures of Argentine soldiers raising the national flag over a representation of 'Las Malvinas').

The journey continued with much laughter and much more mate. They travelled faster than the bike so we made it to San Julian in good time.

They left with a wave and an exchange of email addresses. I was 'el gaucho gringo' - which I took as quite a compliment.

Thank you, guys. I'll do the same for you anytime.

With a full tank, I completed the 120km to the town of Commandante Luis Piedra Buena just as it was getting dark. Crossing the flood plain of the Rio Chico at dusk presented a fabulous view of the huge escarpment on it's southern flank: mile upon mile of sudden, dark cliff-face that reared up ahead of me, a single narrow opening offering an escape route through which the road snaked in shadow and stillness.

	Piedra Buena: Another town named after another soldier. Commandante Luis P.B. was the first official settler in the south of Patagonia, arriving here in 1859.

The road rose sharply, wound through lifeless hills, before rounding one last corner to emerge above the town of Piedra Buena, the Army camp at the near end of town, civilian houses parading in a strict military grid pattern, interrupted only by the Rio Santa Cruz, at the other.

Hidden in thick trees down by the river I found a campsite and, eventually, someone to open the gate and let me in. Having left sub-tropical Brazil and the steamy beach resorts of the North behind me and arrived in deepest Patagonia, Mike the self-flaggelating traveller finally got round to roadtesting the tent.

I felt like the first camper of spring, and the manager of the campsite looked like she agreed. Nothing was switched on, but that may have been the case at the height of the holiday season too. But late that night the pitch next to me was taken by a group of four Israelis driving a Chilean-registered car to Ushuaia. We had last met a couple of days before at a petrol station several hundred kilometres to the north, where their car had broken down. Rejuvenated, they'd caught me up. It's a small world.