Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego province in Argentina and the southern most city in the world. We arrived on an early flight on 16th Oct and were greeted with a rainbow on our arrival.

We had the morning to look around the town but didn’t see much as it was public holiday – Columbus Day.

Ushuaia is a big producer, and consumer, of lamb.

In the afternoon we took a boat out into the Beagle Channel and saw some of the local wildlife.

First off was an island of nesting Cormorants.

Followed by and an island they had abandoned leaving their old nests.

Next were the Sea Lions.

We landed on one of the small islands in the channel and had a look around.

Although it is very close to the port of Ushuaia, the weather is so changeable that it has a refuge for anyone caught on the island when the weather is too bad to return to port. I’m not sure how much weather the refuge could stand.

The following day we hiked in the Tierra del Fuego National Park.

The Pan American highway ends in the park, 17,848 Km from its start in Alaska.

We saw quite a few of these signs around…

and pairs of Magellan geese.

Beavers were introduced from Canada about 70 years ago (supposedly to provide fur for Eva Peron’s coats) and have done tremendous damage to the woodlands as they have no natural predators.

Later we visited the Harberton Estancia (www.estanciaharberton.com) about an hour west of Ushuaia. Established in 1886, it is the oldest farm in the Argentinian side of Tierra del Fuego and still run by the 4th generation of the original family. The main house was designed and constructed in the UK and then shipped out in parts – an early form of flat pack construction. The late wife of the current owner was a renowned expert in the local marine life, hence the whale jaw over the entrance.

This extremely windy country, as can be seen by some of the trees on the farm.

The farm no longer rears livestock after a particularly severe winter a few years ago that 60% of the animals did not survive. It has now diversified into the tourism business with the residents of Isla Martillo, a small island close to the far,. It is home to two groups of penguins. The first group is 40 pairs of Gentoo penguins who had just started nesting.

It is also home to approximately 4,000 Magellanic penguins who were also sitting on eggs in shallow earth burrows.

Amongst the penguins, we saw a vulture with its prey (not a penguin).

The following day we set off on a 10 hour bus and ferry trip to the Chilean side of Tierra de Fuego.