16th January 2015 – Caleta Gonzalo to Puyuhuapl

We took off in drizzly rain at our normal 8:00 start time on a stony road for about 56km to the next town. About 20km into the journey Casper a white MGB got a flat tyre. The tyre was changed pretty quickly & when we got to the next town George was able to buy a new tyre, new tube & had it fitted for about AUD$96. We then had about another 189 km of mostly rocky, gravel and some bitumen roads to drive on. Our problem with the car is not completely fixed but it is much better than it was 2 days ago, but it still cut out twice today after a long downhill run.  These are some of the better roads we’ve been driving on:-  There are road works going on right along Route 7 so eventually the road will be all paved. We got to within 32km of our destination and we hit a stop sign, which was at about 2:30 as we had a ferry to catch at 3:30 across to an island to our hotel for the night. Once we were stopped we were told the road would be reopened at 5pm.   So we sat and watched truck load after truck load of rock & soil come from up ahead & get dumped into an area opposite us. Good job there is a 7:00pm ferry so we’ll have a late dinner tonight! Good job we brought the chairs along, everyone is enjoying them.  Our hotel for the night has natural hot springs, so it’s off to relax in the spa before dinner.