It had been a really windy night and it was a howling wind so we were woken a few times throughout the night. David looked out the window expecting fewer tents, but all had survived the night, perhaps because we were up higher we felt the wind more.

Breakfast in the Paine Grande Lodge was similar to breakfasts we had had in the other refugios except it was buffet style. Everything seemed to be prepared with a little bit more care and we had yoghurt and musli instead of porridge. We swapped our vouchers for our packed lunches and went back to our room to finish off the packing. We could leave our big bag at the lodge reception and just take the day bag with us.

We set off up the valley to Laguna Los Patos, which would have been a relatively easy walk apart from the crazy wind. It was like walking in a wind tunnel and the sudden gusts would almost blow you off your feet. There were a few raindrops in the air, but it was sunny at the same time although there were darker, more threatening clouds in the distance. It didn't take long until the path crested a ridge and we had our first views of Lago Grey with some little blue icebergs floating in the water.

It didn't take much more walking until we got our first glimpse of Glacier Grey at the end of the lake. At first glance it didn't look like a glacier, it looked more like a lake but that might have been an illusion created by the low cloud in the sky. Looking for a bit longer, we realised that it couldn't be a lake because of the wonky horizon, the lake would have been on a slope.

We continued on the track until the first mirador of the glacier, 4.5km from the start at Paine Grande Lodge. It had taken almost two hours walking on a relatively flat track, the difference today for the slow pace was the howling wind we were walking into.

It was worth it though, we had an amazing view of the glacier from the mirador. We were still quite a distance from the face, but it gave a sense of perspective and how wide and how far bag it stretched into the valley. While we ate some snacks, we pondered whether to walk down the steep hill and another 5.5km to lake level to get a closer look from the other mirador. Maria's knee was still a bit sore from yesterday's long downhill walk and it looked like it might rain soon. We also planned to visit another glacier, Perito Moreno, in Argentina shortly and of course, we could spend the rest of the afternoon in the comfort of the Lodge having a drink, writing the blog and sorting out pictures while waiting for the 6:30pm catamaran.

It was a pretty easy decision to make, we waited a couple of minutes in case the clouds parted and the glacier was bathed in sunlight for a final photo. There was no final photo, we turned tail and were soon relaxing in comfy chairs looking out at the beautiful view and laughing occasionaly at the people being buffeted around in the gusts.

Shortly after 6pm we made our way down to the pier to board the catamaran for the 30 minute ride to Pudeto. We continued to have amazing views of Cumbre Bariloche and the Cuernos as we cruised across Lago Pehoé. A bus was waiting for the ferry to arrive and drove us the 3 hours back to Puerto Natales.

It was about 10pm when we arrived, but still not dark. We were first off the bus and first to grab our bags, so in next to no time we had walked down the road and checked back into the Singing Lamb Hostel. We got our stuff from the locker, unpacked and then re-packed everything to benready for tomorrow's early departure to El Calafate in Argentina.