Cerro del Media & the Beagle Channel

From the top of the mountain, Ushuaia looked beautiful. Built on the hillside we'd just climbed, it's gaze seemed permanently fixed on the Beagle Channel and those travelling at the end of the world.

With just a few hours to spare before our intended boat trip – weather permitting – we'd hiked for two hours through the damp lenga forest that we'd grown used to in Patagonia. Near the top we'd slipped our way crossing a bit of snow at the edge of the tree line before reaching the lookout.

Further along there was supposed to be a lagoon so we'd followed the stone markers across the bare, rocky ground. Again, a large patch of snow covered the trail that led up the hill to the lagoon, which turned out to be less of a lagoon and more of a puddle.

After leaving big boot prints in the pristine snow on the way up, Jeff decided to create another set of marks in the snow. He slid all the way down the hill on his backside, almost hitting a rock at the bottom when his steering failed.

That afternoon the wind hadn't picked up and the port of Ushuaia was open for business. We set sail with Patagonia Adventure Explorer on the slightly crowded boat, our stern pointing towards Alicia Island.

'Island' is probably too generous a name for the hunk of rock sticking out of the middle of the channel, but it was here that an entire colony of sea lions were basking in the sun. They were a lazy bunch with not even a flipper moving to show any sign of life. As our boat neared, a few heads moved to look at us and one sea lion sat up and posed for the cameras.

Leaving the colony to their sleep we continued sailing out to Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse the little red and white lighthouse that is the symbol of Ushuaia. With it's backdrop of snow capped mountains and blue water it looked very picturesque on that perfectly clear afternoon. In fact there were so few waves, I was a little disappointed!

On Isla de los Lobos another colony of sea lions lazed in the sun, while on the other side cormorants fed their newly hatched chicks, that we could hear and see squawking in their nests.

 Spot the eggs in the nest and the couple of day old chicks.

Isla de Pajaros, another rocky island was home to a different type of cormorant which our guide was at pains to point out were not penguins. Obviously the sheer quantity of what appeared to be black and white dinner jackets fooled a lot of people, including us. The cormorants were arriving here for the summer to nest, so the colony was multiplying daily.

The final stop was on one of the Bridges islands, where we wandered windswept paths in the place where the indigenous Yamana people had once lived. Covered in low shrubs and mosses, some of which grew just a millimetre a year, the island was in the full bloom of spring.

 We took particular note of the Calafate bushes, whose berry, once eaten insures a return to Patagonia. For the moment, there were only pretty yellow flowers, but there were many options to try them in a preserved form. Our guide recommend the Calafate berry flavoured ice cream, a suggestion we took very seriously...to ensure we made it back to this beautiful part of the world of course!