The Carretera Austral could be one of the most spectacular and challenging cycle tours in the world.

BBC: Chile��s land of ice-blue lakes

For riders on the Carretera Austral, this could mean years of major roadworks and heavy dam-building machinery on the route.

BBC: Chile��s land of ice-blue lakes

So, in 1976, the Chilean Army Engineering Command began construction on the Carretera Austral, forever changing Patagonia and its residents.

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Argentina installed a currency board in 1991, tying its austral (soon, minus four zeros, to become the peso) to the dollar.

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Roads go where they never have before, both in American suburbia and in places like Patagonia, the untamed region at the southern tip of South America, where the Austral Highway was completed in 2000.

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French Polynesia is made up of some 200 islands -- the Society, Tuamotu, Gambier, Austral and Marquesas groups -- spread over 4.1 million square kilometres of Pacific Ocean: an area roughly eight times the size of France.

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The west coast, one of the most beautiful areas of the Antarctic, is usually free of ice during the austral summer from November to March, and is famed for its pristine, glacier-clad peaks, glistening icebergs, pack ice and wildlife.

ECONOMIST: Icebergs ahoy | The