It was totally in keeping with the rest of the trip that I managed not to see Cape Horn, which is an (expensive) plane ride south of Ushuaia. As a teenager I dreamed of the year that I would spend living in a hut overlooking the Cape, and the book I would write there. Hah! Next time!

It was also par for the course when I left the campsite that morning but only rode half way south and west into the XXXX National Park to the point that marks the southern extremity of Ruta 3. I came 3xxx kilometres from the Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires and stopped 20km short of the end.

Another missed photo opportunity but I did make it far enough to take snaps of the local golf course and steam railway station -- souvenirs for friends back in England whose hobbies I indulge but do *not* share -- before turning tail and, for the first time in a long, long while, heading North.

When you're actually there and doing it, the symbolism of moments such as this somehow fails to grab you. Leaving was easier than I expected. The whirl of emotions that turned me inside out on my arrival were replaced with quiet satisfaction and anticipation. But it was something to picture all that lay ahead.

The other reason I stopped short of Absolute South was, predictably, the weather.

Rain clouds were gathering with ominous force over the mountains to my right. As I started back from the National Park and skirted the town they kept pace with me, now at my left shoulder. I felt the first drops of rain as I filled the petrol tank and pointed the bike north and east towards the Garibaldi Pass and, just beyond the horizon, Rio de Janeiro and Samantha. Within minutes I was soaked through again, not to mention bogged down by the unpredictability of the *ripio*.

At least the wind was less of a problem today. Perhaps the Gods thought that one climatic nightmare was enough. Little did they know that, as a Norwegian-Englishman, a little rain wasn't going to worry me.

I stopped in XXXX to see Lucio and the gang who had been so friendly and kind on the way south, but only his brother and a solitary hanger-on were there. Lucio and his crew were all in Ushuaia. Brother made the universal gesture of the bottle, and grinned. It was a shame not to see them again but I asked for their address and left. Brother had trouble working out what his address might actually be. He had to check. He doesn't get mail. This is a world beyond our everyday imaginings.

A little further on I stopped to admire the spot where I had crashed. In next to no wind, it was hard to picture how I could have come off at such an innocuous, normal, *average* spot. There was a slight indentation in the gravel where the bike had fallen and I noted the tracks of the 4wheeler. And then I got back on the bike and rode on.

I pressed on past Rio Grande and crossed the border back into Chile at San Sebastien. On the Chilean side the customs officer confirmed that there was a hotel of sorts at the base but the best place to stay was back on the mainland, just across the Straits of Magellan. This tallied with what I had seen for myself and, just past 6 o'clock, I decided to press on and make the most of the daylight hours.

What a doofus I am!

XXX days before it had taken XX hours to cover these 200 kilometres. The wind had been at my back. And here I was setting off with dusk approaching, rain and a growing wind now in my face. The rain had softened the worst of the ruts but long, sodden patches of mud and puddle were no more comfortable. Just to top things off, the bike was stalling at low revs, when I sat it in neutral to rest or sneak a mouthful of water, and was becoming harder and harder to re-start. Oh, and the petrol gauge was dipping alarmingly. There was no-one on the road. It was getting dark.

What choice did I have? I sped up. As the road became harder to navigate and the light worse and the rain harder, I sped up. Little old me, I actually thought 'well, if you've got to go, you may as well go doing something abit different, with a smile on your face...' How dangerous was it? More than I care to think, looking back, though the truth is I was going far slower than others might have done in the same situation. The adrenelin was definitely pumping, it felt liberating and thrilling and bloody frightening. I'm so glad I did it, but boy was I happy to see the lights of the ferry and finally, for the last few kilometres, paved road once more.

The ferry runs late into the night and doesn't need more than a handful of passengers before setting off. No romantic backwards glances to Tierra del Fuego -- I was too busy holding the bike upright and swapping stories with the crew and other passengers -- as we crossed a tempestuous sea back to Primera Angostura. They told me that while I could get a bed for the night by the coast, I absolutely *had* to head 13 km inland to El Tehuelche.

They were right.

I arrived past 11 at night to be greeted by the World's Greatest Barman and two suspect French filmmakers interviewing a pair of drunken truckdrivers about Pinochet. Someone bought me a pisco sour and I settled down to dry out.

The hotel was a little piece of England. An English country house, in fact, built by homesick Victorian ex-pats freshly over on the mainland from the Falklands, and crammed full of original 19th century goodies - ceramic door knobs, a chest of drawers, light switches, crockery. It was the most remarkable and unlikely discovery of the entire trip.

More of them tomorrow morning when I wake up, cradling a hangover...