ΤΗΕ FIRST GALLON

Every drop of fuel we have ever burnt liberated the carbon of long-dead plants. Until now. This is our first tank of renewably brewed eFuel and it just might save the combustion engine

- Ben Miller

PATAGONIA IS, FRANKLY, A BIT much. So affectingly vast and unspoiled is this elemental landscape of infinite steppe and big sky that you find yourself questioning its plausibility. It is as if the prow of our speeding orange Panamera might at any moment tear into painted canvas and shatter the illusion, Truman Show-style.

The United Kingdom does not really do wide open spaces. By contrast, Chilean Patagonia sprawls with uncluttered majesty. The emptiness stretches to a distant mountain backdrop which, with its solemn peaks wreathed in candyfloss cloud, is so spectacular as to appear unreal; more greenscreen CGI construct than raw geography. Were we in a darkened edit room, I would be leaning over and urging James Cameron to take things back a notch: Jim, mate, sometimes less is more."

The wind and sun that assault my already tender face feel real, as does the stony ground beneath my now-damp feet. But time and again I am struggling to process the views, from raging waterfalls cascading into lakes of dazzling sapphire to the patches of sunlight that race across these lake-studded plains, transforming the colour palette from muted and drab to vital and vivid as they fly.