We almost changed our minds about visiting Harberton Estancia, a sheep farm. Glad we went ahead; we came upon the working ranch, which was founded by Thomas Bridges naming it after his wife’s home village, Devon in the southwest of England. Orphaned at thirteen, he was named Thomas Bridges having been found with a ‘T’ embroidered onto his T-shirt in 1856 under a bridge on Keppel Island on the Falklands. By 1871, Thomas was Head of the South American Missionary Society and with his family became the first white settlers to inhabit Ushuaia.
Month: April 2014
15 April 2014 – Tierra del Fuego movie
[By Jason]
We are still in Ushuaia but will be leaving in a few days to head north as the weather is really starting to turn now, and if we leave it much longer we’ll be marooned on this island until the Spring. No bad thing with the mountains to explore and great skiing in the nearby ski resort. Tierra del Fuego or Land of Fire is such a beautiful place; there is a raw beauty to this land, you really do feel like you are a pioneer at the Fin del Mundo – the End of the World. I have took the liberty of putting another short film together, I hope it will convey the raw, mysterious, wild, beautiful and sometimes hostile land that is Tierra del Fuego. It took me a couple of hours to edit – it’s not a Hollywood blockbuster, but I like it all the same and hope you will too.
I would advise that you click on HD at the bottom right of the movie window, as the quality is not that best due to that amount of compression I had to do to get it on to Vimeo, enjoy.
31 March-8 April 2014 – Ushuaia: El Fin del Mundo
There’s no sufficient superlative to depict the landscape, peripheral scenery and vistas from the Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire. Bounded on the north by the Martial mountain range and the south by the Beagle Channel, Ushuaia is the most southerly tip that can be reached by road. El Fin del Mundo, the End of the World. Home to a bustling port, a labyrinth of steep streets and locals who wouldn’t think twice to voluntarily stop their journey, pull over and offer you a ride home. The archipelago is where the Andes meet the southern ocean and is quite possibly the adventure hub of Argentina, come rain, snow or shine.
24–30 March 2014 – The final push down to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego
Exhausted after a day and night of socialising our socks off in Puerto Madryn and a long ride on top, I got my first taste of South America’s ‘ripio’. This is essentially loose gravel. There can also be sand and dirt present, not always compacted as well as big and small stones scattered all over an off-road track. I could feel red mist descend but what I needed was clarity. I had to stiffen my resolve somehow if I was going to plough through seventeen miles of this stuff.