As we cycled northward through Patagonia, there was one road we knew we must ride - the alluring Carretera Austral (‘Southern Highway’ in English). Although the road was ‘completed’ in 2003, much of it remains unpaved, linking tiny villages that still feel rustic and remote. We entered the Carretera Austral from Tortél, a picturesque village on stilts by the sea. Along the way we were surrounded by Andean peaks swathed in snow and ice, which wrung moisture out of the clouds that nourished the temperate rainforests growing thick on the mountain slopes.

As we sailed across the Strait of Magellan, we left Tierra del Fuego behind. But we still had a lot of Patagonia ahead of us. After a quiet Christmas in the City of Red Roofs, we cycled back onto the Patagonian pampas - encountering some of the hemisphere’s biggest birds, and fields bursting with the pinks, yellows and purples of flowers in bloom. Then three days on stormy seas among the fjords of southern Chile brought us to a tiny town in a steep-sided cove, with no regular streets or sidewalks. Instead there were five miles of boardwalks, and the main part of town lay at the top of 20 flights of wooden stairs.