Hiking in beech forest above Ushuaia

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WELL THIS afternoon I have moved up to a hotel up the hill about two or three hundred metres above the city and it has spectacular views over the city. Almost right next to the hotel is a walking track. I'm doing this right now going over a boggy area of sphagnum moss and along here is the Marshall Range and you can see glaciers up there. They are not very high at all but because we are so far south there are some quite amazing glaciers up here. This is quite a flat area here, probably the terminal moraine of a glacier.

What I've really come up here to see are these trees here. These are the Nothofagus Antarctica, a beech tree very similar to the New Zealand beech trees. Let's get a closer look at one. Here's some of the foliage. This is the Nothofagus Antactica, not to confuse with the Australian Antarctic beech, the Nothofagus Mooreii or the New Zealand silver beech which is very closely related as well. But the three different types of beech tree are very closely related even though they are all on three different continents because once upon a time the continents were all joined together. They started splitting about 250 million years ago just after the period called the great dying when the supercontinent of Pangaea acted as a huge thermal insulator and a huge eruption happened in the middle of it in what is now Siberia. The eruption area was nearly the size of Australia. The eruption wiped out around 95% of all life on Earth.

I need to watch the track now as the soil is a lot more boggy here. Just need to find my way around this bog.

At the time the continents were all joined together and this beach tree, or what would be closely related to it, somehow survived the great dying. When the continents started splitting up, I think South America split off from Antarctica and Australia maybe around 100 million years ago or even longer than that. Australia and New Zealand split apart around 60 - 65 million years ago. That was around the time when the dinosaurs died out. These trees have remained pretty much intact and have only slightly diverted into their different species.

I've always been familiar with the New Zealand silver beech tree which occurs near the bush line as those wonderful wavy beech trees, not to confuse with the mountain beech which is a lot more upright and regular looking. Then there's the Nothofagus Moorii, the Antarctic beech as we call it in Australaia, which is quite rare now only growing in some of the mountainous areas of Australia, including in the area behind the Gold Coast in the Lamington National Park.

I've always wanted to see these trees, and here I am. Now I can tick off on the bucket list I have seen Nothofagus Antarctica.

With that done I need to return to the hotel. I have my briefing for my Antarctic journey very soon and I've seen a few people already going on the cruise, and I can now see one couple from Sydney who I will be cruising with. I find everywhere I travel around the world, many travellers tend to be Australian. There are a lot of New Zealanders as well. I think it is just part of our culture, you'll find us absolutely everywhere. I haven't met the guy staying in my cabin yet, but I did see his backpack when I arrived here. It has an American flag on it so I think he's going to be an American guy and given he has a backpack I think we're going to get on very well. There's some of the guys out there, I guess looking for the track.

We all have to get back by 6:30 for our expedition briefing. Today's not a very good day to get lost out in the bush. I don't think there are any dangerous animals out here. Things like yetis are over in the Himalayas. I don't think there would be anything dangerous at all this far south and if there was I'm sure the lady at the hotel reception who told me about this track would have told me about them and told me to stay away. I'll make the most of this beautiful area with its vegetation because I don't think we're going to see much vegetation down in Antarctica. So my next diary is probably going to be from the ship.