Grandad’s Blog

Do a blog Matt said
Oh yeah, next I’ll have to become a twitterer and send all my life story to facebook.
Fortunately I’m not having a party in the next few years for the world to gatecrash.
No all he wants is another view, so onward.
We left the UK with the threat of snow and wearing our thermal underwear, after two flights and 28 hours we were in Trelew and ready to get the thermals off.
Big smiles from the family met us at the airport but the customs officials thought we had fresh food in our bags, What us? Surely not. It must have been the Marmite.
First bad news – their van (Dotty) was overheating and not fit for going back to the camp site 70 K away! and tomorrow is Sunday and no garages are open! OK tomorrow get our van at 9.30 and Matt and I will try to find somewhere to get his fixed.
Second bad news – hotel has a message that our van will not be delivered until the afternoon! As there are no camp sites nearby the family have a night of low grade comfort in our hotel. We find a very good Dinosaur museum in Trelew and leave the worrying about Dotty until our van turns up late in the afternoon with half the promised equipment either missing or well worn.
Matt decides he will drive slowly to the Puerto Madryn camp site so we stock up with bottles of water to fill Dotty’s radiator on the way. We arrive as it gets dark and find a space. Hooray we are starting the holiday at last, out with the beer and the wine (and the Marmite).
I like going on holiday with my sons. They assume we have never been anywhere before and arrange everything. So now Matthew has a family of six to drag around, life is so easy for us followers.
However we are turned into sherpas when Matt hires a Ford Ka to visit Peninsula Valdes! (Lots of sea lions, some penguins, dolphins but no Orcas and a municipal gipsy camp site).

Our van, now christened Roo (its a Renault Kangoo), gets us down to Punta Tombo to see the most amazing Magellanic penguin colony, with thousand of penguins just walking around you.
So many dusty roads that my shorts are filthy just getting in and out of the car but its so hot at least I shall get my knees brown.
Back to Gaiman to learn about the Welsh settlers, however the Welsh teas are better in Abergwyngregyn.
Nearly the end of the first week and Dotty is back and we are in white vanman convoy again. We are off to the lake district near Bariloche.
Argentina is the 8th largest country in the world. On the map there is a road from Gaiman to Esquel called Ruta 25, it goes through the Chubut valley. The Lonely Planet map shows just three towns on the route which is a journey of 587 kilometres. Buy a bigger map and there are still only three towns. We make the journey and Dotty runs out of petrol outside Esquel. We experience our first “wild camp” beside a 5 hour fuel queue, at least there are toilets not too far away.
It rains and gets colder, bang goes my brown knees.
We made our way North through the National Parks, rough roads and beautiful lakes and mountains.
A great camp site by a lake so we plan a boat trip to see a glacier and some trees. Boat trip day is wet and misty but we meet some great Argentinians. They share their matte pots with us and we share our dreaded lurgy. Grandad gets a few seconds quiet from William by timing how long he can hold his breath if the boat sank. Fortunately the boat didn’t sink.
So on to El Bolson, the hippy capital of Argentina. After over a week on the road we fitted in just fine, in fact hippies stared in admiration at the Wicked Dotty with Jimi Hendrix’s lyrics written on her.
The camp site was good and we stayed an extra day so we could do two fine walks in sunshine and showers. Unfortunately they ran out of potatoes so no chips with our steaks.
Next it was off to Bariloche, hoping to camp on one of the “many camp sites that must be in the lake district”. Well we couldn’t find them. Eventually, as it was getting late we followed a sign, through a forest, three kilometres down a rough track to a camp site that was shut and “wild camped” outside the gates. Night time discussions about pumas and dangerous creepy crawlies made a midnight toilet break a bit nerve racking for us all.
Bariloche is a big busy town, we went direct to the Tourist Office in the centre of town to ask about camp sites, good walks, things to see and use the free wifi. This was standard procedure in every town we stay and Ellie and Will love it. So much so that one of their favourite games is Ellie playing a tourist guide with the local map and Will asking awkward questions, like which are the best toilets or what time does the tide come in. I think he wins if Ellie can’t answer his question.
Rather late in the holiday we realised we were depending too much on just following Dotty. We got lost! Oh no we didn’t, it was them what got lost we knew exactly where we were. So we went back to the tourist office and waited. Fortunately the family soon realised and returned to the start. Oh joy!
The camp site was way out of Bariloche, beside a lake. The sun shone and the view from our camp was beautiful.
Unfortunately Grandad had caught the dreaded lurgy from Nanna but being a man had it really bad.
After a rest day Matt found a recommended walk at the end of a track of which our informant said “It’s very steep, don’t drive up if its wet and slippery”, he was right but happily the day was sunny and it wasn’t too slippery unless the van fell into the crossing river beds or hit the rocks washed clear during the recent rain. Grandad was Colin McRea and Matt was Carlos Sainz, good fun.
We also found out how unfit we were, the family walked up the 1500 metres to the top easily, Ellie telling Will stories and Nanna and Grandad gasping all the way.
Coming down the road track in the vans was very quick but there was a suspicious smell of burning brake shoes at the bottom.
Too soon it was time to hand our van back and for us to fly to Buenos Aires.