Woods go South, Christmas Falkland Island Style

Chapter 7 – 2nd – 5th January – Time to Start Heading North We spent another two nights on Sealion Island. On the 2nd January we had a fairly mellow morning and in the afternoon we set off to explore the East end of the island. We started off following the North coast past loads of Elephant seals. Again they largely ignored us but we still passed them land side – giving them clear passage to the sea if they got spooked. There was the odd Magellanic penguin – they get called jackass penguins because their call sounds like a donkey – noisy little things they are too. Slowly the beach became a narrow strip of rocks – I headed a little higher – joining Andrea in the sand dunes. Tomos joined us too and we kept heading for the East tip of the island. Below Sarah, Elin, Gus, tessa and  The Tussac Jungle Oscar kept to what was left of the beach. We eventually lost sight of each other as our sand-dune path became more Tussac grass invested and harder going. We eventually battled...

Chapter 7 – 30th December – 1st January – Happy New Year from Sea lion Island Happy New Year from the southernmost inhabited island in the Falklands. Sea lion Island has a wildlife lodge, an old farmhouse and a few other outhouses. We are staying in the former and the staff occupy some buildings and the Elephant Seal Research team occupy some more. Between everyone there are 40 or so people living here. After the off road excitement of Volunteer’s point, Sunday 30th was a quiet day around Stanley. We did go for a walk but it didn’t really go to plan and it was more a rest and recover day. New year’s eve was our departure to the Island. Two planes changing passengers at Sealion Our flight times were confirmed by FIGAS (Falkland Island Government Air Service) on the Sunday afternoon – with all the passenger manifests and times being posted on their facebook page. It will be the same for our return flight on Thursday – these will be posted sometime on Wednesday afternoon and we ...

Chapter 6 – 29th December – Volunteer’s Point – Off-road Penguin Tour Well it has been quite a day. Hard to believe we have been on the islands a week now. We note that today’s weekly LAN airlines flight has been delayed by the closure of Mount Pleasant again. Fingers crossed for us next week. Today we have been to Volunteer Point (named after the first ship to visit). This is home to three distant penguin colonies – Magellanic, Gentoo (seen ‘em already)  and a thousand or so King Penguins (second largest type in the World). Getting to the Point was an adventure in itself (as was getting back to Stanley again). Whilst 20 or so miles away as the crow flies; driving there is another matter. It was just over an hour to Johnson’s Harbour Settlement on mostly gravel roads. That was the easy bit. It was then on for another ten miles completely off road. I don’t mean bad road – I mean no road. We drove over moorland – avoiding ditches and ponds where possible and cutting across w...

Chapter 5 – 28th December – Cruise Ship Day The “Star Princess” anchored off Stanley Today the population of Stanley more than doubled. We were visited by a nature cruise ship (about 200 passengers) and a floating hotel – The Star Princess (2400 passengers). The town was chaotic. Tourists wondering around taking selfies, walking in front of traffic (they forget we drive on the left) and the currency in widest circulation today – the US$. Sleepy Stanley was very different. The Clausens run a transport company so today is payday. Many tours departing the port and tickets being sold to those who (wisely) hadn’t booked through the ship’s excursions desk. Andrea was doing a fine job helping the tourists part with their money. We delivered a coffee and then retreated to people watch for a while. They kept asking for Wi-fi access and then discovered it didn’t come cheap ;) Magellanics on the way back to the young We soon escaped and decided to go for a coastal walk for around 5 ...

Chapter 4 - Thursday 27th December – The East Falkland Loop  Today we drove around 180 miles. Most of this was spent on gravel roads. We followed the route clockwise around East Falkland with a detour into Lafonia which joints onto East Falkland at Goose Green. It was good to have a decent 4x4 that made the conditions easy and we didn’t exactly have to contend with much in the way of traffic. Argentine Cemetery We headed out of Stanley past Mount Pleasant and made our first stop at the Argentine cemetery near Darwin settlement. A few hundred are buried here. Mostly conscripted men with little choice in the fool’s errand, the military junta of the time sent them on. There was a strange eary jingling in the place from the rosemary beads which visiting families had left on the gravestones. We then passed through Goose Green where our host Andrea had spent most of the war as a child prisoner of war locked in the village hall. The settlement consists of a few houses, the...

22nd December Arrival The flight departed on time and arrived early. As Mount Pleasant is an active military base, we were warned when we left the plane that photos were forbidden. Nobody seemed to tell that to our friends waiting behind the fence and clicking away capturing our arrival.  No photos allowed! Blue skies - but hang on - no hats allowed - too windy Immigration into the British Overseas Territory of the Falklands involves considerably more paperwork than Chile and we are admitted for two “weaks” – I didn’t have the “strength” to argue ;) it makes a fun passport stamp. I also have to part with £25 each in tax when we leave. I’m assured this is just air passenger duty paid direct and not hidden in the ticket cost. Our baggage was thoroughly checked by the sniffer dogs but they failed to detect Sarah’s contraband “Tetley teabags”. We were in - waiting for us were most of the Clausen family! They transported us to Stanley (Port Stanley to the uninitiated) in ...