I was up and across the iron bridge over the Rio Santa Cruz early. It's 150-odd kilometres to Rio Gallegos, another 450 to Rio Grande, and in these conditions that meant long hours in the saddle.

Gallegos itself is a low, spread-out town of 80,000 hardy souls. They've always been tough down here. In 1905 two American outlaws robbed the Banco de Tarapaca y Argentino. Word was they were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though latest thinking suggests otherwise. Whoever they were, I hope they wore longjohns. (I get to Butch's ranch in Cholila in a few days).

I got out quickly on the road heading south, past a large military airbase -- more shades of the Falklands War. The road curved to the left then zig-zagged across a windy plain to the edge of another range of hills.

Bloody windy, it was, so at each turn in the road the wind came at me from a fresh and usually hideous angle.

I came to a police checkpoint where papers for me and the bike were checked. The policeman noted my details and intentions and, I'm guessing, phoned them through to someone further down the line. At least that's what I hoped was happening, because I was of course heading into the badlands, on a gravel road south to Tierra del Fuego.

This is an open, bleak corner of the world, undulating hills with blotchy grass staining the surface, and the wide, gravel road plonked down willy-nilly runs through it. The estancias here are owned by mining and oil-exploration companies; the fences are that much higher, their signs more threatening.

The huge trucks that were my only companions threw up huge plumes of dust in their wake, most of them a little faster than me but once or twice I came up behind a slow one and had to hold my breath as I rode through the storm.

I was coping with the road conditions -- ripio, they call it -- better than expected, and better than I did when going off-road back in Brazil. Aim to stay in a rut and for the most part you're OK, but every now and then along comes a bump, a rut or a hole that catches you unawares. My average speed came right down.

An hour out of Rio Gallegos I came to the frontier. The road darts from Argentina to Chile and back again, the easiest route south dancing all over the tortuous contours of diplomacy. Remember, these countries distrust each other at best, loathe each other the rest of the time.

The two sides of the frontier are several miles apart, so they don't have to so much as look at each other. In the middle of nowhere, it must be pretty lonely to know there's someone on the other side of the hill but you can't even talk to them.

It was a more straightforward crossing than I had anticipated, though someone on the Argentine side purposefully left a document incomplete forcing his oppo on the Chilean side to write out a form of his own in triplicate.

Arriving in Chile I also had to complete a Foot & Mouth declaration that brought to mind the terrible blight of the British countryside at the start of the year.

Riding out of the border post the Chilean road was paved at first, though only on one side of the road. Quirky. Within the hour I was back on gravel and approaching the Straits of Magellan. Across the water, half a mile away, was Tierra del Fuego, low and grey and *here I am at last!!*.

I had to wait 30 minutes for the ferry. Other vehicles jostled for position. A coachload of backpackers over-ran the cafe overlooking the Straits: the first foreigners I had seen since Buenos Aires a week ago. Out here their shrill voices seemed so alien. I avoided them and chatted to the truckers instead.

The ferry that transported me across this historic waterway and on to Tierra del Fuego is a grubby roll-on, roll-off affair with space for a handful of trucks and other vehicles and not much else. Time enough to introduce myself to other drivers but not much to see from where I'm standing - down on the car deck holding the bike upright against the rolling sea.

Out the other side and on TdF for the first time but no time to stop and think about it too much. What starts as a flat-ish plain gets hilly once you head inland. The road is gravel, of course, but with the wind at my back (I'm heading south-east) it could be worse. It could be a damn sight better as well. I'm really slow on these roads, which are designed for pick-ups and 24-wheelers, not little old me.

It takes me four hours to cover the 150-or-so kilometres to the next frontier post. The estancias, cleanly painted and relaxed, are close to the road now, so I can see signs of human habitation even if I don't actually see that many people. All is quiet, somehow devastatingly so, and quite, quite beautiful.

All the time I'm calculating how long it will take me to get to the border, and how dark it will be there when I get there. So much so that I'm taken by surprise when I finally arrive at the Chilean border post and realise I've made it. The formalities aren't quick, but they could be worse. And better is to come: back in Argentina after a 13km slog through no-man's land (past the biggest sheep herd I have ever seen) is a petrol pump, coffee and best of all *asphalt*.

I zip the remaining 140km to Rio Grande in no time, knee to the ground around the sweeping turns, head down and throttle wide open.

Despite the offer of a night on the tiles with the driver of a van I had met on the ferry (I caught up with him in the final minutes before reaching town) I track down a hotel instead. The town is notoriously expensive and the hotel fits the bill. Designed for travelling salesmen, no doubt. Just to prove it, a prostitute sitting in the restaurant tries to introduce herself as I scarf down a steak.

But the steak, a hot bath and a long, deep night's sleep, are far more appetising.