The most southern road in the world

Even though we’d come in tired from our big hike the day before, we had decided to move on. In a place with very limited parking that was also surprisingly noisy, we thought it best to give up our spot — not just so that others could park, but so that we could also have a rooster- and dog-free night. We had contemplated staying near the start of another iconic hike here, but instead we decided we’d go and meet up with our friends first and come back and hike to Laguna Esmeralda later, when it wasn’t the weekend.

Our friends had followed the suit of many other travellers and headed out of Ushuaia to the east. While the end of the enormous Ruta 3 finishes in Tierra del Fuego National Park, the more favoured “end of the road” for those with their own transport is that of the Ruta J. This small dirt road follows the coast east, looking across the Beagle Canal to Puerto Williams (Chile’s southernmost “city”). Despite the fact that you might think the roads on the other side of the canal in Chile would be further south, the way the land lies means that because the Ruta J goes further east, it also goes further south. The Chilean equivalent road stops further to the west and therefore slightly further north. This means that technically the furthest south you can drive in the entire world is right here at 55 degrees latitude.

You might think that this significant point would be marked by something other than a log in the road, a lone dog and a small hut. You’d be wrong.

It’s quite a drive to get out here though, and we debated whether it was really worth it. Our friends told us that there was a king penguin on the beach though, and that was enough to swing it. We completed the first part of the drive after our hike to the Vinciguerra glacier, stopping at Lago Victoria and enjoying a peaceful night there. The next day we did some of the cleaning jobs that needed doing before we set off to Puerto Almanza and caught up with Horst and Christine on the coast.

Horst looked rather surprised as Ruby crossed a fairly substantial ford and emerged pouring water from all the rust holes underneath on the other side. He thought we’d have gone around that, he told us. I now saw the other access road, which I probably would have taken. Still, no harm done. Ruby drip-dried on the grass while another German camper turned up. Once again, we were blessed with a nice day, even managing to eat dinner outside before quickly retreating back into the warmth afterwards.

The next morning, our friends headed off in the other direction to hike Esmeralda, while we planned to continue further east to reach the end of the road. It’s a shame, because it was the last time we saw them and we didn’t even say goodbye to each other. At the time we always assumed there’d be another day. That’s the thing when you travel like this: you really don’t know what’s coming next. We left via the alternative road without the water crossing, much to the disappointment of the other camper, and headed eastwards. It’s the best part of two hours to reach the end of this road. From there, you can hike further down the coastline to a small “lighthouse”. I refuse to call it a proper lighthouse because it is literally an LED bulb on a metal tower, and to me lighthouses are just that — houses.

It seemed our friends had a similar idea, as their camper was also in the parking lot. They had already been down and so we agreed to see them later back at the beach where Bob, the solitary king penguin, resided. In the meantime, we headed off for a blustery walk down the coast. The path is unclear and within a few hundred metres we had lost it already as we hopped from one grassy tussock to another in an attempt to avoid the boggy quagmire beneath. At points we picked up a random track and followed it, with the general idea being to stick to the coastline. After ending up in a few more bogs, we eventually made our way to the lighthouse.

For a second, I debated climbing up it. But the rusty metal structure swayed ominously in the wind and I settled for sitting on the rungs of the ladder rather than scaling them. We sat there for a second in the gale-force winds and contemplated that this was the furthest south we might ever go. We’d have loved to visit Antarctica but there was absolutely no way that was in the budget, so for now — and the foreseeable future — this was it. Every step we took now would be a step further north.

Standing at this point, it seemed that there was a far clearer path heading back. We dropped down almost immediately to the stone beach below where I picked up a nondescript rock. Lee eyed me suspiciously, as he does when I acquire souvenirs.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked in a slightly resigned fashion.

“It’s a souvenir!” I replied enthusiastically. “From the southernmost point on the trip!” I showed him a boring black pebble. He looked unimpressed.

“Really?”

“Yes!” I said. “That’s the point. It’s boring. The only special thing about this is where it came from.”

He may have rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop me pocketing my boring rock as we set off back to the camper.

Thankfully, we found a far easier and clearer path all the way back. No more being stranded in bogs. We stuck to the shoreline until we reached the abandoned animal pen and shed that signalled we were nearly done. Back at Ruby, the other campers who had spent the night with us previously had arrived. We chatted briefly before heading a short way back down the road to spend the night filled with wine and board games with Matt, Cinta and Gaia. And of course, here is the obligatory proof that Ruby made it here.

The next morning, they too began to head back. We decided we’d stay another night as we had done a long drive down here and it seemed like it warranted at least two nights. We spent some time getting familiar with Bob, who was still here. It was amazing to be so close to this beautiful creature as he sat lonely on his endless beach. Apparently he was waiting for his coat to change and then he’d be able to swim back to his colony, we heard from other people.

We thought we’d spend the night here and then stop off on a small walk to break up the return drive the next day. As we had the night to ourselves, we decided to crack open our last bottle of champagne and celebrate our southernmost achievement. Our celebrations got slightly derailed by the wind. While it had been breezy most of the day, our friends said it normally got better at night. Indeed, the other night it had dropped off at sunset, leaving us with a pretty peaceful night.

Tonight it went the other way however. The breeze turned into a gale and then the storm hit. We were parked parallel to the coast and the wind came in directly off the sea, hitting us side-on. This is bad. Ruby can withstand some pretty severe wind, but she does much better facing into it. The roof swayed precariously and we decided we needed to bring it down before it broke. Ironically for us, slightly drunk and fighting a huge swaying lump of fibreglass, our attempts to save it were the very thing that broke it.

Inside at each end, we have two U-shaped bars that operate together in a kind of scissor motion to raise and lower the roof. When the first snapped, the other side was quick to follow suit. The entire roof slid to the side, ripping the canvas and held in place only by the gutter. Lee went outside in the torrential horizontal rain and pushed the roof — which was now down but so far to the side that we couldn’t leave it there — back into place. It took so much effort he hurt his neck, but he did manage to get it to a point where we could move. He sat on the sofa, bent double in agony. Despite the fact it was now 2am, it was my turn to save the situation. I made him a hot water bottle and left him there with some water and painkillers. In the meantime, I took off the remaining bars. We had two good ones remaining. I swapped this pair onto the rear of the roof so that it could be lifted from the back only.

With this done, I roughly packed up and, in the complete darkness with nearly no visibility, I very slowly edged Ruby out of the grass track and back onto the road. Apparently there was a sheltered spot just a kilometre away. I drove at nearly walking speed. All the lights were on: fog lights, headlights, LED spotlights. I still couldn’t see much. The road was completely flooded in parts, making it hard to see the edges, but after what felt like a very long time I pulled up to the large space on the side of the road which was sheltered by a forest. We could still hear the screaming wind and rain still lashed the side of the pop-top as I raised up the back again, but we were sheltered from the worst of it. The hardest part now was actually getting into bed. Having the roof only half lifted gives a very, very small space to crawl up into bed. I’m not sure how crippled Lee got up there, but he managed it and finally, at around 3am, we could think about sleeping.

At least being down a road this size meant little traffic. Despite our late night we managed to get a fairly decent sleep and got up late. We decided we’d had enough and, now with our roof only half working, we headed back to Ushuaia in the hope of fixing it. I had thought that the drive out would have been worse, especially after the very heavy rainfall, but it seemed the road had drained well and nearly all the puddles were gone. Even the one slightly muddy part where they were building a new bridge was easily passable. It’s still a three-hour drive back to the city though, even in good conditions.

Once we arrived, we headed straight to a torno. It was shut. We tried another. It was shut. We found one final option, now at the end of the afternoon. We headed inside clutching pieces of aluminium tube. The guy looked at it unhappily. He told us he couldn’t do it and that the person who could wasn’t there but would be back in half an hour. We told him we’d wait outside in the car but after a good hour we decided that this wasn’t going to happen. We headed back to the train station instead to see if we could bodge something together before repairing it properly. In the end, I found some plastic ½-inch hose connectors, which I hammered inside each end of the broken tube. Then, drilling some additional holes, I riveted the connectors in place. It was very ugly and not very strong, but that night we did manage to lift the roof back up like normal. We’d just have to be careful from now on that we didn’t let it get too windy again, as these definitely wouldn’t take much strain.