Hubbard Motorcycle Adventures

WE HAVE ARRIVED ! WE HAVE ARRIVED ! WE.HAVE ARRIVED ! And the pictures say it all- Arctic ! - Antarctic ! The top of the world The bottom of the world Leaving Vancouver. 1 July 2012 Arriving Ushuaia. 6 December 2012! And of the arrival into Ushuaia? Well those 99 kilometers counted down quickly. It was 40 km to go. Then 20 km! Then 10 km...... At the 5 km mark there were a few people on the side of the road. Then they were lining the road. Then they were several deep. They looked happy! They were throwing rose petals on the road. They were cheering! They were waving New Zealand flags! The cheering changed to a roar as Richard John Hubbard and Diana Katherine Hubbard rode triumphantly into Ushuaia. The oldest ( or at least the most mature!) couple to have ever ridden a motorbike " 2 up " from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia had arrived. Church bells started peeling. The message went out rou...

No,we are not talking about age here. We are talking about the latitude below the roaring forties and just as mariners feared these winds so do or should the motorcyclists in Tierra del Fuego. It seems as if these southern global winds that circumnavigate the globe at the 50's latitudes do not slow down at all for the little bit of land that juts into the southern ocean and culminates at Cape Horn, Radioman checks the wind So into the cross winds we rode as we headed down to the ferry crossing of the narrowest part of the Magellan straits. It was hard work leaning the bike sideways into the strong gusts. It was a nice relief to get to the ferry and find that in spite of high winds it was still operating. So across to Tierra del Fuego it was and down the road to a nice warm and welcoming hotel at the town of Cerro Sombrero. The last of a total of 19 border crossings! Then dawned " the day ", the final day and the ride into Ushuaia. Just a matter of one final border cross...

We are now in Argentina and in the Argentinian version of Patagonia. It is very different from the Chilean version. The Argentinian side is the dry side and therefore is largely barren, bleak and treeless. But then it has Ruta 40 - that famous road that has been known to reduce grown men (or, at least motorcyclists) to tears and wrecks Why so? "Now what is that brown stain on my bike seat? " Well firstly about two thirds of this "Rollicking Ruta" is still gravel and this amounts to about 400 km of the 600km section down to El Calafate. It is gradually being sealed but the gravel section is a lot of loose metal. And very loose at that with lots of nice round rolling river stones to keep the bike like a bucking horse. Then overlay this with the wind! We only had a brief taste of the famed wind and were very lucky but it can quite readily blow motorbikes from one side of the road to the other and off the road ( and it does!) Cross winds on loose gravel roads on a mo...