Only 6 people made the crossing on the small boat to Puerto Williams, causing the customs men in each country to open their small offices to stamp our passports. I had previously made contact with Patty who rents rooms in her home and offers home-cooked meals in the evening, so I was soon settled there. A good choice, since the restaurants in this small town look like they open only when they feel like it.

Two days later, and I was hiking over an 800m pass just south of the 55th latitude. The islands around Cape Horn came into view, and the notorious Drake Passage beyond. The weather so far had been beautiful and sunny on this five day circuit around the spectacular rock towers of Cordón de los Dientes, but the pass represented the end of any protection from Antarctica's weather system. I would be spending the next two nights south of this mountain ridge that provides shelter to the Beagle Channel.

After pitching my tent by a large lagoon I proceeded to build a stone wall around it, and over the guy ropes and pegs to protect myself from any high winds that might develop. Dark clouds lowered during the afternoon and I fell asleep in the evening to the sound of rain and thunder. But I really wasn't expecting what came next, particularly not on midsummer's day.

It was the change in the sound of the rain that caused me to wake at around 5-0AM. With the fly sheet sagging under the weight, I quickly realized that it wasn't rain falling out there, it was snow. Outside, there was a white blanket about 3 inches thick. I shovelled some into my pan and heated it up to make warm milk for my breakfast cereal, and wondered if I would be able to move at all that day. I would have no footprints to follow in the virgin snow, no map to refer to (since there isn't one), and only a handful of GPS co-ordinates to find my way to a series of markers. I packed up and made slowly for the next pass, knowing that I did have something with me that I've never had before in these conditions - 20 hours of daylight!

Two days on, and by lunch time today I was sitting on a beach at the Beagle Channel in sunshine, watching a family of geese on the water, and reflecting on a remote wilderness in which I felt I had experienced all four seasons. Back in Puerto Williams there seemed to be some genuine concern for my safety, since they too had experienced some severe weather. The police, with whom I had registered my details were surprised to see me back in such high spirits, and Patty greeted me with relief after telling all her guests about this English guy who had left for the Dientes circuit before the blizzard came.

The town has only 2000 residents, and half of those are military personnel, since this is a naval base and official capital of Chile's Antarctic territory. Being 30 hours by boat to the next Chilean town, it has a very isolated and desolate feel, but an incredible sense of community.

After reaching my furthest point south (also on midsummer's day) my direction has now reversed, and I'll be starting on the north bound journey by taking that 30 hour ferry ride, which incidentally is the same journey that was made in September 1916 by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Chilean navy, and 22 men who had just been rescued from Elephant Island. Their isolation had lasted for 21 months, much of which was spent camping on drifting pack ice and living on seal and penguin meat, and they knew nothing of the war that had spread to almost every corner of the globe during their absence. Every traveller I meet down here knows of their journey - probably the most astonishing survival story of all time.

Posted from Puerto Natales, December 26th, 2011.