A little side trip

10th April. Lago Falkner to lago Traful

Life in the freezer

Sarah was the first to venture out of the tent and it was apparently a sight to behold. I felt I needed a little more information, but when she insisted I handed the camera I felt it was probably worth a look. What a beautiful morning, everything outside including the tent was covered in a silver film of frost. It was really one of the autumn mornings that I love to wake up to. The sun soon put pay to the glorious scene, this however warmed the air and us to as it was bitterly cold.

 A dusty road to somewhere

The usual routine was done and we were soon on the road and heading on along this beautiful road. The scenery however took on a slightly stranger appearance. The layer of ash which had been deposited by volcano Puyehue could be scene, it wasn't quite as much as we had been lead to believe. It didn't really spoil the scenery, but change it to a strange Luna type landscape. The road and scenery was quite as amazing as the previous day, but this was to change when we turned on to the road to Traful.

The turning to our surprise was smooth tarmac this really put a smile on my face as I was tiring of the dirt road. It turned sharply and wound up from right to left and on the left bend we sat and had some lunch and watch a grader smoothing the road below. Once fed we started on again and the smile soon vanished as the tarmac ended and the dirt resumed. It wasn't to bad going though and we enjoyed the changing scenery, there where a couple of patches of soft sand which Sarah always managed to clear, but I decked the bike nearly every time. The reward to our days effort was just around the next corner in the form of the most magnificent lake and mountain views yet.

Our first stop was at the head of Lago Traful on a small beach looking out toward the mountains opposite. These mountains where covered by trees which had the ting of autumn about them, the upper slops just below the snowline was a beautiful bronze colour and here autumn was in full swig. We enjoyed this spot for awhile and then set off again, it wasn't long before we stopped again to enjoy this lake. The rest of the journey to Traful  was along the edge of the lake and it did not disappoint, neither did the town.

Autumn Colours

On arriving in this very small town we first found somewhere to camp, the one we found was a little pricey, but seemed very nice. Next was a trip to the shop to by supplies for tomorrow, we found a small shop not far from the campsite. In here we found everything we needed included some very nice homemade bread. The one thing that we had both noticed was how there was volcanic dust on everything. To end a perfect day we treated ourselves to a meal out, this was partly due to me wanting to try some local trout. We both had the fish and neither of us was disappointed if anything we felt pretty stuffed. What a perfect day