CHAPTER TO THE LAKES DISTRICT

Before talking about journeys here is another little trip or what you might call an on the road type observation. When we started the trip in Vancouver Diana found it a little difficult getting on the bike with having to get over the big yellow Ortlieb bags that sit on top of the panniers ( so did I ) There were a few oohs and aahs, the odd wobble and it was a sigh of relief from both me and her when she was finally "installed". It is not easy to mount the fully laden bike with full pannier bags and there is always the worry of an inadvertent "tip over" during the mount.

Now what a different story. It is as if there is a fairy is alighting on the back, it is just one quick and deft movement and she is there. Oh so effortlessly! So effortless is it that it is like "Tinkerbell" is arriving on the back. So Tinkerbell it is now on the back!

And of course that means I am calling myself " Pita Bread". Why this do I here you ask? Well it is quite simple. You see "Pita Bread" translates in Spanish into "Peter Pan"! Groan!

So back to the road. From Chillan it was back on the Autopista yesterday for another 590km high speed ride to the town of Osorno. Why Osorno? Because there is a BMW motorcycle agent there ( Motoventura) and it was the opportunity to change the tyres and check the bikes over before the rigors of the last push down to Ushuaia. From here on to the Deep South and back to Buenos Aires there are tough rough roads and there is very little backup support.

Boy in a toy shop!

So after a thoroughly pleasant night in Osorno it was off to Motoventura in the morn to have the tyres changed and brakes etc checked. Following that it was a detour to take the long way round to the lakeside resort town of Puerto Varas. This area has been largely settled by Germanic peoples and it shows in the place names, the architecture and the roadside churches.

And we could have been in New Zealand and one could have been forgiven for thinking we were not. Within a 50 km space we saw Mt Taranaki, Lake Manapouri and Lake Taupo, the Waikato dairy farms and the beech forests of the South Island all nicely juxtapositioned.

Waikato?

Tomorrow we may go "out of range" as we head into the bush and gravel roads of the Carreterra Austral as it winds its way down the Chilean " West Coast" so this may be the last posting for a little while.

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The last post!

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