We were greeted this morning by a clear sky and bright sun, what a treat. We continued North to the junction of highway 7 and the road to Chile Chico (highway 256). Along the way we said goodbye to the mighty Rio Baker and its turquoise waters, and Lago Bertrand. The Carretera Austral has been, despite the rain, a wonderful experience and we are sad to leave it.

At the junction we turned East towards the small town of Chile Chico and the Argentine border, 120 km away and the start of the next leg of our Patagonian adventure.

Todays journey really serves to emphasis how big Lago Carrera is. The entire 120km journey follows the southern shore of this immense lake without getting to the end of it. We will follow it again tomorrow when it becomes lago Buenos Aires in Argentina. ( It is the second biggest lake in South America)

However the size of Lago Carrera was not the big surprise of the day, the road itself and the views it offered were the surprise. Initially the road wandered uphill and down dale like any country road; about a mile or so from the lake. But eventually it joined the lake shore. The shore line is steep rock so the road is, in many places, carved from the rock like a ledge, and is steep and narrow as it winds into bays and up over headlands. The views along the lake shore, north to an impressive range of mountains, and back towards the Austral and its snow capped mountains were simply wonderful and all against a foreground of the turquoise waters of the lake.

We agreed that this is probably the most picturesque piece of road we have so far travelled.

Chile Chico turned out to be a nice tidy, wind swept town that seems to have a mortgage on poplar trees. The town is a veritable forest of them - an effort to get some shelter from the wind off the lake.