After a long day yesterday we were allowed a lie in so did not get up until 7am - we didn't open the curtains so we would not be jealous if we missed a glorious sun rise. Today temperatures were forecast to be 20 degrees and importantly with little of no wind - amazing for this time of year - indeed it had dropped considerably yesterday.
We left at a very civilised 9am for the National Park - we stopped to take great picture of the reflections of the mountains on Bitter lake - a picture more likely in the wind free winter months so we knew we were lucky.
We then watched a pair of guanacos mating while two others looked on, did a lot of spitting and one in particular kept trying to push the mating male off - the female sat there oblivious - presumably that as long as the strongest one her offspring would have the best genes! We then entered the national park and had superb views of the mountains - we were heading to Grey Lake to see the grey glacier and as we got closer we left the open grasslands and moved to a more wooded area - less guanacos and hopeful we would see the very rare deer or Huemul. John spotted 3 go over the brow of a hill and we thought that was it then Jorge saw a mother and youngster in a wooded area just ahead of us - we walked closer and amazingly they stayed - in the UK the red deer would be long gone. They allowed us to spend 20-30 minutes photographing and watching them which given there are only 1500-2000 left in the world it was a real treat. ( Today's photo is an intimate moment between mum and baby Huemul.) Pia, John and I then walked to the hotel wear park where Jorge had gone to buy the boat tickets. As we arrived he pointed to a tree and we had another highlight - a lovely pigmy owl sitting in the open on a branch of a dead tree. Excitement over we took our picnic and relaxed in the warmth on the river bank - it was now tshirt weather! However while lying on my back enjoying the weather, needless to say with my camera by my side, I did take a reasonable picture of a condor flying over!
After lunch we walked across a bridge, through a wood - where I saw a parakeet ( regularly heard but difficult to see) and down to the boat.
We were taken out by zodiac having donned our life jackets for the 3 hour trip to the grey glacier - 1 hour there, 1 hour back and an hour at the glacier.
With the lovely weather and blue sky the photographs of sky, thin high clouds and ice were amazing - we also got to see Paine Grande from the other side and could see the ice shapes on its highest point- these make it difficult to climb and it's only been done four times - the first being by Chris Bonnington.
At the end of the trip we headed back to the hotel - my last photo of the day was of an oyster catcher in the evening sunshine. We arrived back at 9pm so quickly went to dinner, as they stop serving at 9.30 pm, while contemplating a 3.30am get up tomorrow - we are going to see if we can see Puma!