Falkland is part of Great Britain, despite being so far away. In 1982, there was a brief war between Argentina and Great Britain, because Argentina decided the islands actually belonged to them. Our tour guide in Buenos Aires explained that the Argentinian government at the time was not popular, and they thought a war would increase their popularity. It was a short and pointless war, but it had a big impact on the people living here, and the effects are still felt today. The Argentinians put plastic landmines on several of the beaches, without keeping a record of where they were placed, so even today, there are beaches that people can't use, because they haven't been de-mined yet. The good news though, is that many of the safe beaches are home to colonies of penguins. Our plan for the day was to visit one of these beaches called Volunteer Point.
The first step though was taking a tender to the town of Stanley.
We had booked an excursion to Volunteer Point with Estancia Excursions, and we quickly found them at the pier. The lady in charge paired us with a driver who took us to his vehicle. We could tell we were in for an adventure.
It had two flip down seats in the back for the girls, and they had thoughtfully put in a car seat for Elena. We started our adventure on a nice paved road.
Then we switched to this kind of track. Our driver laughed and said this was the good road.
Sure enough, soon we were driving over fields and hills, making it up as we went along.
Elena had fallen asleep on the smoother parts, but woke up here and said in alarm, "We are not on the road!" We reassured her that this was all planned and okay. She calmed down, but felt the need to make sure we knew that, "This is not safe driving." It gave us a good laugh.
The drivers make sure to caravan, so just in case someone does get stuck or need a hand, they have backup. We were also driving through people's fields, so it was necessary to open and close gates behind us. At one point, we got quite up close and personal with a group of cows. After about two hours, we caught sight of water and knew we were almost there. Then we started to see penguins, and, to our great surprise, sheep. Apparently here, the penguins and the sheep just hang out together. Our driver told us not to walk towards the penguins or get too close, but we were free to wander and let them wander by us in return. There were a few places with rope or rocks telling us to stop near nesting areas, but otherwise we went where we wanted. It was incredible.
There are three types of penguins at Volunteer Point, gentoo
magellanic
and king
The kings were definitely the prettiest, but the gentoos were the most mobile, dashing back and forth to the water and the nesting ground.
Magellanic penguins are burrowers, and so there were several sitting in their holes, presumably on eggs.
We started our explorations in the grassy area near where we had parked, and then walked towards the beach.
There was a rope telling the humans not to go to one part of the beach, so we used binoculars to say hi to the penguins, who were mostly over on that side.
I love that they played in the waves, just like the girls in Rio.
Even all bundled up, the girls managed to play in the sand, attempting to retrace Elena's footsteps back from the shore.
Our tour included a packed lunch, so we looked for a grassy spot free of penguin poop (not an easy task!) and sat down for lunch.
Dessert was a chocolate penguin biscuit.
After lunch, we had a bit more time to wander around, so Elena practiced her penguin walk.
Finally, it was time to say goodbye to the fantastic penguins and head back across the fields to Stanley.
On the way back, the drivers stopped to rearrange some metal slats over a ditch.
Once we were back in the town, our driver showed us a few of the sights, and then dropped us near the church and stores. We needed to get toothpaste for the girls. Mom and I stuck with them for some coffee and scones, and Jeff and Dad went to check out the driver's favorite bar and the local beer, the Iron Maiden, named after Maggie Thatcher.
The church was undergoing some renovations, but I got nice pictures of the whalebones and the flowers outside.
Our main destination was the place with the best scones in town.
While we were waiting to meet back up again with the guys, I couldn't resist a picture with the girls and the typical British phone booth.
It was an interesting slice of England near the bottom of the world. We all agreed the Falkland was one of our favorite parts of the entire trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment