Fwd: Henley De Railed !

We'd made it to lunch figuring that our day was just about done with only 35kms left and a vague reference to 3 more hills followed by some easy single track - but boy where we wrong !

Day 1 of our cycle adventure got underway on a cool morning (14c) with Kev and I a little worse for wear having worn out a path to our rooms toilet after having stupidly downed a beer & wine before going to bed the previous evening!

Our 35km pre lunch segment was ostensibly a large circuit taking us back to our starting point in Futillar. Along the way we'd passed through industrial areas, wide open farmlands and undulating off road sections that had Kev wincing in pain from his arthritic right wrist ! 

In Frutillar we took lunch with H obviously still delirious as he indicated that he"d thought the waitress had asked him if he'd like "meat" in his coffee !!!

After lunch we took on a series of "steeper than the last" hills ! One "mother" included an 18% segment that had all of us other than Julia (smiling) on her high powered E bike, gasping in the cold Chilean air !

Having survived the climbs we took on the Chilean cycle version of the Dakar Rally! The cycle first negotiated a dirt road with boulder sized rocks, then some single track that offered the very real chance of impaling one self in black berry bushes before finally ending on a 2km section on loose screen rocks right beside a disused rail line that H swore would have been easier to ride on !

This was a pretty big opening day with over 800 metres of climbing so it was with some relief that when we finally arrived at our hotel in Ponte Varras.

All that was left was for us to head out to dinner, hang it on Pommie Kev about the state of English cricket and tackle some of the massive sized steaks they serve here in Argentina and Chile !