A bit of a wild goose (elephant seal ?) chase !
Lovely quiet night on the beach and woke up and had a
very leisurely breakfast and fiddle about before setting off to the last
unvisited point on the Peninsula Valdes – Punta Delgarda, over on the far south
eastern corner. Supposedly a colony of
elephant seals over there…… I thought it
would take most of the afternoon so I was planning to return to the camp site
in Puerto Piramides for the night. But
first I drove the short distance back to P Piramides to go to the panaderia for
some fresh bread, and some insect spray for the mosquitoes and bush flies (just
like the little aussie ones !) that are becoming more prevalent as it gets
warmer.
The bakery was a super little one, and he had some carne
empanadas just cooked – So I took a couple of those with me for the journey
! I then set off back to the dirt road,
70 kms across the bottom of the peninsula.
Road surface wasn’t too bad, but
very dusty with the recent heat and no
rain, but fortunately there wasn’t much traffic on the road. Not really much to see, either – Just the two
salt pans north of the road. Together
with the collection of oil from whales and sea lions, the harvesting of salt
was one of the primary local businesses in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, with a big transport system developed to get the salt back off the
peninsula. Obviously this has now ceased,
but the three large salt pans (one further north on the road to the Orcas)
remain.
In the last 3rd of the trip, the pampas scrub
gave way to green and mush lusher looking grasslands – Whether this was cleared
and introduced by man, or natural, I don’t know. But the estancias on this grassier land seem
to be more affluent, and have a lot more sheep grazing, although they did have
to share with the rhea who obviously prefer the grassland too !
Finally arrived at Punta Delgado, where there is a big
entrance gate, and then you drive though and on to the property. All seemed a bit odd – Having to open and
close the property gate, and then finding only one other car at the place –
Just totally different from the other animal watching points on the
peninsula. And when I parked and went
through another gate to the building I found out why. This is not an official
animal reserve,
supervised by rangers from the National Park.
It is in fact a private hotel and restaurant that just happens to have
elephant seals on the back of their property. This was all explained very
nicely to me, and I was invited to look around, although I was warned that the
elephant seals had all left a couple of weeks ago, heading towards their winter
feeding grounds further north. Bummer
!! The girl also said I was more than
welcome to have lunch in the (deserted) restaurant afterwards if I felt like
it.
So off I toddled, and it turns out this place played
a major role in the original development of the Valdes Peninsula. The light
house was built on this the SE corner of the peninsula and manned by the navy,
while the property also played a major role as a telegraph station in the early
days. A garage was also there as the
only place on the peninsula where trucks / wagons used for the transport of
salt and other goods could be repaired and maintained, and increasingly the
same for the cars of people who came to visit in their own vehicles. Now Punta Delgado operates as an estancia and
a hotel, as well as a kind of museum.
After wandering though a few of the buildings that were
open to the public (as against used for accommodation
as part of the hotel), I then went through to the lookout over the ocean. When I got there, lying down on the rocks was
a solitary female elephant seal – Very large looking with a good layer of
blubber, it appeared ! Everyone else had
left except her – I was told that she will probably
leave in the next few days,
but it seems odd that a single animal would remain behind instead of travelling
with the herd. So apart from a very nice
view, and a solitary seal, I had come some 70 kms for very little ! Bit of a disappointment after yesterday, but
then you can’t have black wine gums all the time, can you ? And it was interesting to learn a bit more about
the history of Punta Delgado, and also the whole peninsula, so all was not in
vain. Just 140 kms of dusty dirt road…….
!!
So as I headed back west, I started to re-evaluate my
immediate plans. It was only 2 pm. I had
now seen everything on the Valdes Peninsula, so there was no point in stopping
early just to spend another night at the (not very nice) camp site in Puerto
Piramides, when I could easily make it back to Puerto Madryn where there was a
much nicer camp
site. I could then get
an oil change done in Puerto Madryn before setting off north, and with a bit of
luck that should be the last oil change I need before leaving South America. So with that decided, I pushed on west. For the last part of the day, I took a dirt
road that ran around the coast into Puerto Madryn – I had wanted to come out
that way last week, but couldn’t find the correct road out of P Madryn – So when
I saw the turning this time, I took it.
It was a very pleasant road around the cliff tops with lots of lookouts –
I stopped at one of them for a late sandwich, overlooking the whole coast.
When I dropped into Puerto Madryn, I found out why I was
unable to find this road when leaving the other day – There are massive road
works blocking several of the roads and it was a nightmare trying to find my
way into town. It would have been
impossible trying to get out that way !!
Once in town I went straight to the Toyota dealer, but unfortunately he
said he was so busy he could do nothing until Saturday. No way am I waiting here for 4 days, so I set
off back to the campsite to see if I could find out about a good “lubricentre”
in town, where they do oil changes and servicing. The lad who checked me back into the camp
site told me where there was one, and I went straight down there and booked the
car in for 9 am tomorrow. That will give
me the chance to dig out my last oil filter (not available down here so carry
my own) from my storage area, as well as the special Toyota tool they need to
remove the filter.
That done, it was back to the camp site for supper and to
start reading up in the book about things I can go and see between here and
Iguazu Falls. Camping close to the office
area I also got a site where I could get wifi inside the van, making everything
a lot easier ! And a nice hot shower
before bed – Ah, bliss !! Actually, I
was thinking the other day, people who prefer baths to showers would really be
out of luck on a trip like this – The only baths I have seen on the entire
journey have been in the occasional hotel we stayed in !! You don’t get baths
in camp sites, and in central America where they only have cold water, even if
they had a bath, it would be a cold one, which would not be too inducive to a
long soak at the end of the day ! No,
You have to be a shower person to do a trip like this one !! ROFL.
A manyana………
Photos from 225 not displaying.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ian. All fixed.
ReplyDelete