Falkland Islands

First impression – bleak and wild.   After a complete scrum to retrieve our mass of luggage we fought our way out and were met by Keith (the government Chief Executive) who had really kindly taken time out of his day to drive the 45 mins to Mount Pleasant from Stanley to pick us up. 

I think Mount Pleasant has been named with a hint of sarcasm as it isn’t on a mount and it isn’t…

Mount Pleasant to Stanley

The journey to Stanley was along partly paved and gravel roads.  The types of roads out of Stanley in ‘Camp’ (from the Spanish ‘campo’ meaning countryside) mean that having a 4x4 is absolutely essential.  If you want to get to really isolated spots then a Defender is the only sensible option.  This is a place where seeing a normal family hatchback is a novelty. 

The landscape was mountainous on one side with sheep dotted about here and there and peaty streams tumbling over rocks, and on the other side tidal lagoons where the peaty streams slip into the sea.  It’s a really beautiful landscape still scarred and weathered by the ice age.

New Home

Our new house isn’t very pretty from the outside although we do have a row of wind sculpted trees along the left boundary and a low hedge of stunted hebes on the other.  Much garden potential if we had years to develop topsoil and lots of money to spend on it.  The soil is a thin layer of peat over gritstone. In other words, a challenge.

The house is warm, spacious (until our furniture arrives) and very light.  The windows are large and the views simply stunning.  We look over the Narrows across to stony peaks of hills beyond.  It’s wild and I’ve been told, very similar to the landscape on the Shetland Isles.  It has the potential to be a very comfortable family home.

We had a foretaste of the kindness of people here.  There was salad, milk, bread and butter in the fridge and pizza in the freezer; biscuits, tea and coffee in the cupboard.  One of Matt’s colleagues had popped in to make sure we settled in well and had not only left us the normal welcome pack but a complete meal too.

After dropping our bags and the children spending half an hour charging around the house exploring we headed out to Surf Bay.  It’s our nearest sandy beach, about 5 a minute drive away in the car Matt had bought when he was here back in November. A Land Rover – what else???

Surf Bay

If this beach was anywhere warm it would be packed with tourists.  The bay is a perfect sweep of white sand backed by a row of sand dunes.  The sea is crystal clear.   It’s also quite windy.

When we were there the sea was thundering onto the beach and the sand was constantly moving.  Petrels wheeled overhead and little birds picked about on the beach.  It was bitterly cold so we hurried back to the car and on around the headland to Gypsy Cove.

Gypsy Cove

Another perfect sweep of white sand but this time inaccessible.  The beach is fenced off.  Minefields surround the beach, laid by Argentine troops during the 1982 conflict as they expected the British to land there.  Many minefields have been cleared over the years but this one hasn’t.  It may be strategic as the beach is important to Megellanic Penguins who nest and raise their young there.  It keeps the beach tourist free for the penguins.  The tourists get a good view though and there is a lovely walk around the rocky headland.  We took the path and were really amazed to find penguins on either side of the path near their burrows eyeing us with curiosity.

It’s the time of year that the penguin chicks fledge so we had the delight of seeing chicks peering out of the tunnels at us.  They aren’t particularly wary of people so we were able to get quite close.  A cold squally shower forced us back to the car and to our new house to warm up.

Our Neighbourhood

We are on a hillside which drops down to the sea.  We have neighbours.  It is a novelty to us, and many of Matt’s colleagues live nearby.  We are about 2 minutes walk away from a shop, The Narrows bar and the sea.  When driving it is considered polite to wave or acknowledge other drivers.  It’s a lovely custom and one we’d encountered before when staying in Connemara in Ireland and also on Ascension.  It does get a bit tiresome when the roads are busy at the start and end of the day and during the lunchtime exodus when most people go home for lunch.

Friday

Our first proper day here and Matt’s first day back at work.  The weather was beautiful, windy but warm and sunny. We spent most of the morning unpacking and getting organised.  It was such a relief to finally unpack and stop moving.  We were overwhelmed by the kindness of our friends and family who put us up and let us borrow their houses, but to finally know that the journey was over was tremendous.  We spent the afternoon mooching around gift shops and drinking the most wonderful hot chocolate at the Bittersweet Café.  It was lots of fun.

We met Matt at a hotel bar for drinks with his colleagues before going home for dinner.  It’s mid -summer here so it doesn’t get dark until about 10pm.  We decided to go back to Gypsy cove and to do a circular walk around a headland.   

Penguins were out in force as were Rock Shags and Blackish Oystercatchers.  We were keeping a close lookout for seals who are often seen basking on the rocks.  Unfortunately there weren’t any seals about but we did see dolphins!  Just off the shore poking about in the kelp were two Commersons’s Dolphins.  We watched them as they seemed to swim alongside us for a bit before returning to deeper water.  It was magical.

Saturday

Awoke at 6am and sat in the lounge while everyone else slept.  I sat in our lounge watching a cruise ship gliding past into Stanley.  Apparently the population of Stanley doubles during cruise visits with up to 2500 tourists coming ashore.  Another one came too but had to moor outside the Narrows as it was huge, much larger than the first one, more of a floating block of flats.  It needed much deeper berth in which to anchor.  We watched as little orange craft ferried passengers to and from the ship all day.

It began to rain, and oh my how it rained.   We felt so sorry for those who came ashore.  Wind, rain and little visibility, the impression of those visitors on their one day at the Falkland Islands must have been tainted by the miserable weather.