Chapter 4 - December 27 - The East Falkland Loop

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 hall and even has it’s own race course too! 


Sheep (with Gentoo Penguins)
Passing our feet during lunch
We then had a choice – visit a Gentoo Penguin colony at New Haven or visit the southern most suspension bridge in the World. We will be seeing 1000s of gentoo penguins on Sealion Island later in the trip so needless to say it was decided we were to see more of them today and no bridge for me! 

 It was a further 30 min or so to the colony and we noticed they live quite happily with the local sheep. Parents were taking it turns to go out to sea to get food for the young. We picnicked near the waterfront and the penguins happily passed on their way to and from the sea.

 After lunch we returned to East Falkland and across to San Carlos. This is where the British totally surprised the Argentines by landing during the war. There is a beautiful small cemetery there which is the resting place of some of those involved. San Carlos is a long way from Stanley and the march of the forces across the barren wet winter landscape cannot have been easy.
British Cemetery - San Carlos

 We continued onwards clockwise and some three hours later we were back at Stanley. The drive was varied in terms of landscape and road conditions but at the end of the day we had a sense of scale of the place and the hard life that farming in “camp” brings. Though I am assured it is a doddle these days compared to the past.  




Fun Fact – anywhere not in Stanley on the main islands is known as “camp”. I can confirm there is an awful lot of camp with not a lot of people.
Breezy lunch


Map of the route




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