The last leg to the end of the road requires a final, free, ferry. The downside is that the ferry is 120kms from Cochrane, the last decent sized town, and leaves at 10.00, 12.00 and 18.00.

As we were over 200 kms away none of the options were open to us as our average speed is around 35/40 KPH on the ripio. So we made a small detour to Calleta Tortel.

The Calleta is a small village with board-walks for connecting the houses, all vehicles have to be left in the town car park on arrival and then bags and cases carried to accommodation. We chose the hospedaje with the nearest, shortest walk.

The next day we set out for the 12.00 ferry, over another pass, but with good ripio expecting it to take 90-120 minutes. Making decent progress we dropped off the final hill and turned into the harbour, only to see the 10.00 boat backing out and turning its bow south. Resigned to a 2 hour wait we parked up, and then I noticed the ferry had turned back towards the harbour and was lowering the bow doors with a deck hand waving us to come down the ramp and ride on. Totally unexpected.

The final run in, another 100kms started out wet as we crossed two more passes. Then as we dropped into Villa O'Higgins the skies cleared and the sun shone all the way to the end of the road.

And to cap it all off, there was not one , but two petrol stations. We had flown by the seat of our pants (once again) and not carried any spare fuel. Well, Jean had flown by the seat of her pants as my bike can do over 400kms on a tank, Jean only 300.

We declined to take the small ferry across to Argentina as only walking trails and pony paths exist on the other side.

We settled down for some beers and pondered the fact we needed to turn around and do another 450 kms of ripio before any paved road in Argentina.