"Don't eat the mushrooms!"

Living in the Falkland Islands for a couple of years.  This is just some random jottings of life here. Some fresh food can be scarce and hard to find.  Two large steaks are around £3, but a small tray of mushrooms costs over £5, so I have been gathering wild mushrooms in season, as I'd been assured by locals that there were no poisonous mushrooms on the islands......

Mushrooms - wild and free, and now with a health warning!

Well, that may have been true, but I have just heard on Falklands Radio that the Health Directorate announced that wild mushrooms should not be eaten as it's been found some are causing severe vomiting and kidney and liver failure.

Maybe some alien type of fungi had slipped though the bio-security cordon, and established itself here?  Oh well, another free food off the menu.  Back to trying to catch an Upland Goose....

Cycling to the end of the safe bit of road...Sapper Hill.

There's a Triathlon coming up in November, and it's been suggested I might do the cycling part of it (in the team event).  So, I've been getting my old touring bike out on the few miles of tarmac around Stanley, to see if I'm fit enough to enter.  The jury is out, as it will be a demanding, hilly, and probably windy, course.  I haven't cycled for a couple of years, so need to get the miles in.  From the airport to Sapper Hill is about 6 miles - and 4 miles are almost always into a strong headwind, and uphill !

ASR & FIDF

But the weather is slowly improving.  So much that Air-Sea Rescue helicopters and the Falkland Islands Defence Force do a lot of training in the harbour.

Mt Tumbledown, with damaged cross.

We've also participated in a walk up Mt Tumbledown, from the west - the same direction  as the British troops attacked the Argentine positions on the slope, in the 1982 war.   It was a very tiring and tricky walk, and that was in daylight at a leisurely pace.  I can't imagine running up it in the dark with heavy equipment, and people shooting at me!   Many brave young men lost their lives there.  We stopped at the memorial to reflect on their sacrifices.  However, the wooden cross at the summit had been snapped in the wind.

A regular sight over Stanley

As mentioned previously, many marine animals and birds are now coming ashore to breed.  On a sandy beach near Stanley, we've seen pods of dolphins, seals and penguins (usually looking a bit bemused at the people walking their dogs).

Seals are more photogenic than dolphins....

There's also several bays and beaches where different species of penguins congregate, and we've been visiting them as often as possible to watch them come ashore and waddle up the slopes looking for a nesting site.

Falklands Thrush

Below is a photo of Gypsy Cove, about 3 miles from Stanley, which overlooks the broad outer harbour and where larger ships anchor and transfer fishing catches.

Spot the penguins....(centre)

Magellanic penguins have burrows in the slopes here, and are now cleaning them out and getting ready to mate.

.......newly-arrived.  Home to breed.

These penguins have a burrow with a fence round it!

Hercules low over Stanley.  Sapper Hill in distance.

Your guess is as good as mine.  Stanley garden harpoons and skull.

Meanwhile the keen gardeners are seeing their bulbs come up or their sculptures  divested of their protective winter tarpaulins....

Spring is here

Time for gnomes to earn their keep....

http://en.mercopress.com/2012/10/05/residents-leave-doors-open-round-the-clock-in-crime-free-falkland-islands?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=main&utm_campaign=twitter

A group of Caribbean journalists have been in town this week.  We met them in a pub quiz in the Stanley Arms.   A bit cooler than they had expected, but the hospitality has been good.  They've published some articles on the South American news agency, MercoPress (see link above), which describes the relaxed attitude to home security, here.  

Hasta la vista, as I say in the Spanish classes

Peter

Evita, Mr Darcy, and the fight for the Falklands.....

As I write, I've just seen on Sky News a British MP ask the Prime Minister why the UK taxpayer is still making loans, via the World Bank, to Argentina!  Yesterday, a Referendum on sovereignty in the Falklands was announced.  The media spotlight is returning to the Falkland Islands for a few days.  Meanwhile, tomorrow is Liberation Day........

Overlooking Stanley Harbour

In my previous post, I went into some detail about the battle for Mt Longdon.  In the following 36 hours, the entrenched paratroopers were to lose another 4 comrades to the incessant and accurate Argentine artillery.  After going into some detail about the Battle for Mt Longdon, I won't subject you to a repeat.  But, for the British Forces, the battles on the 13th/14th June saw a repeat of the successful tactics which had enabled three hills to be captured on the night of the 11th June:  heavy naval artillery fire and close-quarter fighting at night, using highly-trained young soldiers.

In fact, so effective were the British troops, that captured Argentine officers assumed the decisive advantage had been the use of night-vision goggles.  The couldn't believe that the Task Force only had a handful of these goggles and all had been issued to helicopter pilots and none to ground troops!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Tumbledown

Scots Guards - Killed In Action

 The Battle of Mount Tumbledown, and the impact on one participant - Lt Robert Lawrence - was depicted in the film "Tumbledown", starring a young Colin Firth (completely naked in one scene, if anyone needs an incentive to watch it!).

Memorials on Mt Tumbledown

Abandoned Argentine field kitchen 

 Like many of the surroundings hills, Tumbledown has a low cliff of sheer rock around most of its summit, so the defenders had to be engaged bunker by bunker, rock by rock.

North face showing its defensive properties

 About 900 British troops, comprising mostly Scots Guards, attacked the heavily-fortified hill during the night, simultaneously with attacks on neighbouring mountains.

Remains of defensive stone fortifications (sangars) dot the landscape.

 After 10 hours of bitter, hand-to-hand fighting, the high ground was under British control and the street lights of Stanley could be seen about 3 miles away.  At least 40 combatants lost their lives during the night.

Some troops moved on to the next objective, but already it was becoming obvious there was a general retreat of Argentine troops back into Stanley (where the main body of troops were stationed).  It was now the role of the British commander of land forces, General Jeremy Moore, to ensure the Argentines surrendered quickly and didn't prolong the conflict with street-to-street fighting amongst the residents of Stanley.  He moved into the outskirts of the town, and skilfully secured the surrender that day, the 14th.

Tumbledown, with Mt Longdon about 2 miles to the north.

All that remained to do was to round up, disarm, feed and then repatriate 10,000 Argentine troops; rescue 1,800 Stanley residents trapped in various buildings; detect and defuse 25,000 unmapped mines (work pending); destroy hundred of tons of ammunition and weapons;  repair roads, houses, water supplies, airports, as well as return the victorious troops back to their loved ones as soon as practical.

Tumbledown, this week, from near Stanley.

All in all, a shed-load of work which took years to complete, and some, like the mine clearance, remains deliberately incomplete.  (Several soldiers were injured in the aftermath while trying to clear minefields (with captured Argentine assistance), and the commanding officers felt it was too much of a risk for too little reward.)

However, the political and economic post-war resurgence in the Falklands has left a legacy of good schools and health care;  a network of roads (albeit without tar) connecting remote settlements; an international airport; a world-class fishery; excellent wildlife tourism infrastructure; a large military garrison, and the prospect of an oil industry.

The blot on the horizon of this South Atlantic idyll is the Argentine President's continuing call for the Falkland Islands to be "returned" to Argentina.

No Islander takes her proclamations seriously. (She never gives interviews or debates in Parliament, preferring to issue announcements from the balcony of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, a la Eva Peron (Evita)).

However, her lack of acknowledgement of the status of the Falkland Islanders and the huge sacrifices made by both antagonists,  is a great regret to all who feel that the war should have been an end to the matter.

"Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it".  Tomorrow, and in the future, the Falklanders will remember the sacrifices made on their behalf.

Wildlife tourism - the future's bright.

Peter
Stanley
13th June, 2012