So here we are in Ushuaia, the 'town at the end of the world'. It is impossible to go any further south anywhere in the world. Only the Antarctic lies south from here, yet the South Pole itself is still 5000 miles from here! Only where you really study a map do you realise just how huge the Antarctic really is. The region is called Tierra del Fuego (translated as The Land of Fire) and with the rugged, windswept landscape which nestles at the foot of the start of the Andes mountains, which stretch from here along the entire length of South America and onwards to Alaska. As we expected, the temperature has dropped pretty significantly and we feel like we are freezing in temperatures upto a maximum of 5 degrees. The wind off the coast line makes it feel much cooler though and for the first time today we had our first bout of snow (despite it being summer here), though we were climbing up to a glacier at the time, so that is hardly surprising! If you imagine how cold and windswept the Falklands are, then imagine what it is like even further south here in Ushuaia. Ushuaia is surrounded by nothingness for many, many miles around. Most of the surrounding area is given over to Pampas countryside and the Tierra del Fuego National Park where we have done two treks. The first, along the coastline of the Bay of Ushaia, was a little more temperate and very beautiful. Strolling through the rolling woodland on the banks of the icy waters of the bay we were lucky enough to see a beaver having a swim. They are a little bigger than an otter and have flat tails and very big teeth. We stayed and watched it for about 20 mins doing laps, no more than 20 feet in front of us. We are not sure if it was totally oblivious to our presence but it certainly didn't seem bothered by us sitting there. The water of the bay was so clear you could easily see the bottom of the bay, which was quite deep in places. Further along the trail we visited a walkers refuge for some refreshments and low and behold, what should walk in front of us (10 feet away) - a Patagonian fox. We had never really seen one that close before and we were surprised at the depth of its fur (very red and thick) and the fact that its tail (long and bushy like Basils) was dragging on the floor - that can't be good for hunting. There were also 10-15 birds of prey swooping down (little bit like kestrels) to see what little tit bits they could pick up. All in all a good day. Today we took the aerosilla (chairlift) to the base of the Glacier Martial, which overlooks Ushaia, about 1km above the town and 7km distant. We managed to time the chairlift for the most icy part of the day and whilst wrapped up in several layers we still managed to feel the bone chilling effects of the wind that cut across the mountain. The glacier itself is very different to the one in El Calafate. Nestled on the side of the mountain it had a gentle slope to it rather than a sheer face of ice and hundreds of streams cascading out from underneath the ice. Here the ice was also white, rather than the luminescent blue of the Moreno Glacier, perhaps because there was less ice here overall. Today we have also seen our ship for the first time, which docked last night. It is smaller than some of the big cruise liners we have seen in the port but that makes it more manoeuverable when we get to the ice ridden waters, further south. There will be a maximum of 114 people aboard so it will also be more personal and we should have the opportunity to meet everyone aboard. Chris is looking foward to meeting the Captain and getting a chance to steer the boat for a while! Carol wants to re-enact the scene in Titanic where Leo Dicaprio and Kate Winslett stand at the bow of the boat. Let's hope that's where the Titanic references end, particularly as we're in Iceberg territory. Now that the ship is here, somehow the whole journey to the Antarctic seems more real and we are both really excited in anticipation of the sites and animals that we will see along the way. In preperation for the journey, one of the first things we had to buy when we arived in Ushaia was wellys - apparently when we land on the Antarctic Peninsula, you can be calf deep in water - no matter how good our goretex boots are they won't protect us from freezing toes in those conditions. So tomorrow we board the ship and meet the crew and ship mates for the first time. With some luck we will be able to update the website on board, but if not we will report back in the middle of December.