Breaky at 8.00 – we made our own packed lunches for our trip
via bus and boat to Grey Lake and Grey Glacier today.
Sitting here after breaky with rain patterning quite
persistently on the Dome, hope it doesn’t last all day.
Met in the parking area for a tour of Eco Camp – composting
toilets, solar hot water and hydro power turbine – which provides 60% of power
needs of camp. It was an amazingly small 2 inch pipe and small motor/turbine
etc.
Then into two small buses for the day trip around many, many
mountains, lakes a waterfall and ultimately to Grey Lake, Grey Hotel and Grey
Glacier via a 3 hour boat ride up the Lake to the Glacier. An hour up, an hour
moving across the 2.7km face of the glacier and then an hour back.
Some amazing views – unfortunately photos not easy out the
bus windows.
Some great plants/flowers. A bit of rain, but mainly when we
are in the bus. Some fantastic view of Blue Massif and towers. Wind blew up
instantly at Lake Grey – we now understand the many warning signs about strong
winds.
Chose active option for tomorrow – hope we can cope. (we
were briefed over our coffee at Lago Grey Hotel)
Short 20 minute walk down to the edge of Lake Grey – where
we boarded a ‘zodiac’ type boat to join the boat for the Glacier cruise aboard
“Patagonia.” While waiting to board we saw a very colourful little bird called
a “Patagonian Sierra Finch”
There were some large bergy bits near the start of the
cruise and many more closer to Glacier.
Amazing rocky mountains with waterfalls either side and the
water is that amazing greenish/blue colour of water filled with glacial silt.
Whilst I was worried this would pale beside our Antarctic glaciers, it wasn’t
the case. The sun shone and we saw amazing colours of blue, black, diamond
white in the glacier and bergy bits. Hope the photos captured even just a bit
of it.
It was quite windy when we started cruise, but later we were
allowed up top, which afforded great views.
After we had sailed the face of all 3 parts of the Glacier,
they stopped the boat and broke off some iceberg to serve in drinks so we had
an iceberg filled Pisco Sour – how very Patagonian.
Eventually back to Eco Camp at 9.45 after some lovely views
of the Patagonian Stepped, Blue Massif, various Lago’s and rivers in the light
of the lowering sun. Beautiful dinner. Cream of squash and leek soup, Pork
Tenderloin with Potato plus Tres Leches – all good.
Saw some great flowers on the steppe this morning, with the
help of Catalina and a book they were:
·
Mother in Law – a clumpy plant all over the
steppe
·
Calafete berry – which we tasted
·
Little Virgen’s Shoe- yellow and red, looked
like a duck (Zappatito de la Virgen)
·
Adesmia Gris
·
Lady’s slipper
Tree.
Panoramic view of Grey Glacier
View of mountains and probably Paine River.
View of the peaks and mountains out our Dome window.
Outdoor area near the Core domes, where we ate and drank etc.
A furry bearded plant growing on the trees.
Adesmia is I think the name of this one, looked like a little rubber ducky from above.
a View of Torres del Paine
Mary and I with the obligatory mountain shot.
It looked like the 'horn' was on fire, it was really just the cloud was protected from the wind by the horn.
nice orangey yellow plant - some sort of evening primrose.
a waterfall, there was a whole lot of ice melt feeding these river and Lakes, think this cascada was called "the tub"
Lots of water.
Grey Glacier, icebergs, they were an hour away from the actualy glacier, and still not melted despite the warm summer weather.
This one is called 'dry love' it sticks like crazy to clothes etc.
A piece of iceberg in the Gray Hotel.
A Patagonian Sierra Finch.
Blue iceberg. Colours were much different to those in Antarctica.
The Glacier, divides into 3 around rocks.
Iceberg
The rock formations were amazing also.
This looked like slabs of slate stacked up against each other.
The foot of the glacier.
The edge of the glacier, grinding against the rocks at the edge.
A bit of iceberg chipped off a bergy bit for our drinks and to get a look at.
More of the glacier slowly flowing down the rocks.
again trying to capture the different colours of the bergy bits off the glacier.
This piece was grey/blue.
Glacier, rock and sun shot
Black...
hard to describe...
arty shot
long shot of lake and moutains.
fossils in the rocks.
fire damage.
the steppe in the afternoon sun.
Our dome.
Us outside our Dome, home for 4 nights.
Dinner time for Safari Group in the core domes.
Pork tenderloin on a potato something or other.
No comments:
Post a Comment