Chapter 12

So what, I assume you now ask, did you do with the rest of your Falkland sojourn, well apart from working & fishing not a lot, I did pay a couple of visits to Gypsy Cove to watch the antics of the Jackass or Magallenic penguins, its not that far from Stanley & the views are pretty good, I was even surprised one time to see a solitary King & Gentoo penguin stood on the sands being ignored by the cavorting Jackass's & more so by having to stop on the way back to Stanley as said Gentoo wandered lonely as a cloud along the track, I did offer it a lift but it politely declined suggesting it never accepted lifts from strange men, alas, I remarked later that evening to my venerable host "I failed to pick up a penguin" believe me, at the time it sounded quite funny.

As noted in the previous entry I'd escaped the preparations for Battle Day with a spin around some of the delights of East Island, on Battle Day itself I, along with others headed off overland to Volunteer Point, have a look on the Landrover page for more details of the trip itself. Volunteer Point is a headland on the east coast of East Falkland to the north north east (as the crow flies) of Stanley, & east of Johnson's Harbour & Berkeley Sound. The point is home to the largest King penguin colony in the Falklands with over 600 breeding pairs & is the most northerly colony in the world. In addition there are over 1000 breeding pairs of Gentoo & a sizable colony of Magallenic's, oh & we shouldn't forget the sheep, there are plenty of them as well. The trips well worth the effort, the white sand beach is beautiful & teeming with oyster catchers & sandpipers as well as smaller birds like the long-tailed meadowlark, Falklands thrush, Magellanic snipe, Falkland pipit and dark-faced ground-tyrant, occasionally you'll also see the odd elephant seal or sea lion.

Unfortunately I didn't get to spend anyway near enough time there as I would have liked, as a free loading passenger I couldn't really quibble the arrangements so other than running around taking lots of pictures I didn't really get time to just sit, chill & take it all in. On the upside what time I did get there has only gone to reinforce my intention of getting there when time allows on a future jaunt to FI.

Feed me now

March of the penguin

Magallenic Peekaboo

King & Gentoo penguins taking a break

Gentoo's

Chapter Twelve & a Bit - Post Script - Jan/Feb 2009

Sunday 15th Feb, got back to Blighty early doors yesterday morning having spent the last three weeks on the other side of the world, I arrived in Chile on time, flew into Rothera care of BAS's D7, did what I had to do, flew back to Punta Arenas, picked up the token once a week jaunt via Lan Chile into the Falklands, spent an unremarkable week as a guest of the MOD in the officers mess at MPC & then flew back to Blighty at an ungodly hour of the morning on Friday to arrive back at Brize Norton in the wee small hours yesterday.

Other than watching a few tottering Adélie's & sleeping Weddell seals as well as seeing the first of this seasons Fur seals arrive I didn't really get up to any fun & frolics this time around so there really isn't anything more to tell, work, work & bloody work, gets in the way of all the fun sometimes, ah well, better luck next time.

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