Is this Herefordshire??

29th March, Rio Bueno to Panguipulli (78M)

Food break in a bus shelter on ruta 5

Another morning of mist, this time from the river in town. Again as we left town and cycled northwards the sun came out and the mist dissipated. We'd elected to speed up our journey north a bit and cycle 60km on Ruta 5,a dual carriage way, heading north to south in Chile. There was a huge hard shoulder and not much traffic so the riding was safe if not overly scenic.  It was a quick 60km with good road surface and not many hills.

Quieter roads

At Los Lagos we turned off the main road and took smaller (still tarmaced roads) eastwards. We were constantly on the look out for campsites, or places where we could camp but it was again very agricultural and diary country. As Gareth pointed out, except for the volcanoes in the background we could be cycling through herefordshire! Typical Chilean signage had us excited for a while,one sign said camping was 4km away, the next sign pointed us down a gravel road that went on and on with no sign of civilisation, typical Chilean signage!

Lake views

So with nowhere we stop before we eventually arrived with weary legs at Panguipulli. A long downhill into town was welcomed and I felt well deserved. Thankfully there was someone still in the tourist office and we were directed to a 'campsite 1km out of town with lovely lake views'. All good until the final 100m up to the campsite which was almost vertically up a gravel drive. I'd wrongly assumed 'lake views' was 'lake side'. However once at the site, the views were great and also except for one other couple we had the campsite to ourselves again.

not quite 'lakeside'