Road trip finale

If you've been following this blog, you'll know my wife and I moved to the Falkland Islands in January 2012.  If you've not been following this blog, why not?  :-)
Anyway, if you've just arrived you have some catching up to do, but this is probably the last posting, so no need to rush.

Darwin settlement with Mt Usborne in the distance

 In January 2017, I suffered a sudden retina detachment, my third in the 6 years here, and despite being rushed to an eye clinic in Oxford, it still takes a long time to travel 8,000 miles. A long time with not much to distract one. I was, and always will be, deeply grateful and appreciative for the treatment and care I received both in Stanley and Oxford, and for the Ministry of Defence flight to RAF Brize Norton which saved my sight.

Off road driving can damage your car. Mt Usborne

 But, it's not an experience I would wish to repeat, and so we decided reluctantly that when my wife's contract completed in 2018, we would not renew and stay on in the Falklands, despite our deep affection of the place and its people. When my detachment was diagnosed, I was put on a flight north, which luckily was leaving the next day. It arrived in Oxford the day after, and I was operated on within hours of landing. I simply don't believe I would be so lucky again.

Crossing stone runs can be tiring

 Before we leave later this month, we have a lot to do, but one thing we wanted to do was to visit various places on West Falklands.

Pet sheep, Darwin

 En route, we stopped at Darwin House, a favourite and very  comfortable lodge about 60 miles from Stanley, and handy for the ferry, about 30 miles further.

Goose Green hare, ears down.

 We tried to walk up Mt Usborne, the highest hill in the Falklands. But after slogging up the slopes through the ankle-grabbing white grass, and knee-turning stone runs, the weather closed in and cloud shrouded the summit. So, so we trundled down the hill again. Better safe, than having to call out air-sea rescue teams.

Falkland Islanders are renowned for their re-cycling skills. Here a bus converts to bijou accommodation....

Darwin, named after Charles Darwin, who visited in 1833, is about a mile from Goose Green. Both were fought over in the first battle of the 1982 war. There are memorials to those killed from the Parachute regiment, including Col. H Jones VC, their Commanding Officer.

Goose Green

 There is also an Argentine military cemetery nearby, which received about 200 relatives of Argentine war dead on March 26.  This event was widely covered by the media, as some 90 previously unidentified occupants of graves had recently been identified by DNA testing, and their relatives given the opportunity of seeing their relative's grave for the first time. Plaques saying "An Argentine soldier known only to God" were replaced with the soldiers' name.

Reversing the red car onto the ferry tested my manoeuvring skills!

 So, after fond farewells to the hospitable hosts of Darwin House, we headed for the ferry to West Falklands, along a road which is, apparently, outside the scope of the road traffic legislation, as are the roads of West Falklands.  A strange feeling to know that a drunken, speeding, uninsured  motorist could crash into me, and he wouldn't have broken any law!  To suggest this needs to be sorted out is an understatement.

Possible Sei whale seen from the Concordia Bay ferry to East Falkland. Saw lots of "blows".

 Fortunately, we survived the roads and enjoyed a wildlife cruise on board the utilitarian ferry, Concordia Bay.  We must have seen about 20 whales blowing during the 90 minutes crossing.  There were also dozens of dolphins and seabirds.

Slight hollow gets us out of the wind while we have a picnic...Yes, that's a sheep skeleton.

 Our first stop on the West was Fox Bay West, closely followed by Fox Bay East.  They are about 3 miles apart, but due to convoluted booking arrangements, we couldn't stay 2 consecutive nights in either. Not a problem as we received great accommodation in both and enjoyed the landscape and wildlife.

Fox Bay - We watched the dedicated Zimbabwean deminers working here.  It shouldn't be long till the Falklands is mine free.

 We were soon continuing our trip on new, to us, roads.  No traffic to speak of until I noticed 3 large trucks in my mirror, carting loads of stone for repairing the road we were about to dive along.

The road to Port Stephens.  Looks empty....

 Pulling over to let them pass, we slowly meandered south to the settlement of Port Stephens.  The human population is about 4, although we had just missed a huge wedding with 99 guests.  It must have been a wonderful, traditional occasion if the decorations in the shearing shed were anything to go by!

With about 50,000 acres to roam in, you'd think the sheep could find somewhere a little less annoying to congregate!

 The landscape around Port Stephens is hilly and coastal, so we were soon out and about following Land Rover tracks up the rounded hills.  We didn't see many sheep, more Aberdeen Angus steers and penguins.

Curious cattle

 One day, we set out with a gale behind us to walk to Indian Village about 4 miles away across the bay. From a distance, the eroded rock protrusions vaguely resemble North American teepees.  The walk was worth it to see those sculptures close up, but we still had to walk back into the teeth of a gale. Certainly, it blew away the cobwebs that day.

A good drying day!

 Also near the settlement is a large beach with thousands of penguins.  They were mostly Gentoos, with a couple of King penguins mingling in their midst.  There were also supposed to be Rockhopper penguins on the next beach, but as the walk entailed negotiating steep cliffs in a gale, and the birds may well have migrated away, we resisted finding those guys.

A couple of King Penguins mingle with the hundreds of Gentoos

Wind-blasted rocks, Port Stephens

Prime beef on the horizon

Inquisitive Striated Caracara. Very rare and annoying raptor.

 The scenery was breathtaking, although we were disappointed not to quite make to it the spectacular headland of Calm Head. In taking an easy upward track out of the settlement, I hadn't realised that that meant a rather undulating route later on.  So we opted for a distant view, and headed to the penguin beach, via some more amazing rock sculptures.

Calm Head(s)

Looking south, from Indian Village (left) to Calm Head (right)

Stephens Peak

The Sphinx?

Calm Head

Tourists blocking the view...

The beach has thousands of penguins already ashore and hundreds more at sea waiting to join them.

 Down at the beach, we noticed 3 people at the other end, so we settled down at "our" end to watch the penguins arriving home after a hard day's fishing.

Penguins porpoising purposefully, propelling themselves to safety.

 Within minutes, we noticed a patrolling sealion, who was obviously also waiting for returning penguins.  He would come up for a breath every couple of minutes or so, but mostly he stayed in the shallows, and waited until the penguins were on top of him before attacking.

Bull sealion awaiting penguins

The dark shape is Mr Sealion....

Landfall!

Running for safety

Acting nonchalant! Look BEHIND you!

That's a penguin in the sealion's mouth, and I don't think it's getting mouth to mouth resuscitation...

Petrels arrive for a piece of the penguin

Hundreds arrive while the sealion is distracted

All too soon, we had to leave the penguins and Port Stephens, and negotiate the roads....

Road repairs, West Falklands

 No need for contra-flow systems - simply drive off the road and around the blockage!

Commerson's dolphin while waiting for the ferry to East Falkland

 Waiting for the east-bound ferry at Port Howard we could watch the dolphins doing what dolphins do - feeding, mooching, acrobatics, etc

Dolphins enjoy company.

Leaving the West

Spot an albatross during the crossing.

It was an exhilarating end to a wonderful trip. We hadn't covered many miles, but those we did were largely devoid of traffic or human habitation.  Where settlements were found, we also enjoyed warm welcomes, not to mention teaberry buns. Thanks to everyone who has made this a special trip.

Adios. Sayonara. See ya. Adieu. Auf Weidersehen. Ciao. So long and thanks for all the fish. xx

Mt Usborne - the Highest Peak

Last month saw a group of walkers set out to climb Mt Usborne - at 2310 feet (705m.), the highest point in the Falkland Islands .........

Mt Usborne from Darwin.

The mountain is named after the Ship's Assistant on the Beagle, which brought Charles Darwin to the Falklands in 1833.  You can get good views of it from the settlement of Darwin, which is about 70 miles south-west of Stanley, the capital.

In convoy across Camp

On a breezy Sunday morning, about 10 of us set off for the 60-mile drive west from Stanley, and then a 5-mile off-road track to the base of the mountain. This track gets rough in places, but we had a couple of experienced drivers in the convoy, who could pick their way through the traps.

Negotiating a small stone run

The group parked the cars around 11am, and set off under grey and blustery skies. Luckily, the strong wind was at our backs as we clambered up the steep slope. We crossed a few stone runs, but eventually reached the summit plateau after about 90 minutes.

The summit cairn.  An old exhaust?

Blowing a hoolie at the top!

Unfortunately, the wind had increased in strength, and standing on the exposed plateau was an effort. After a few photos and signing the visitor's book, we headed east to find a more sheltered spot. Rather surprisingly, the north face of the hill was very much steeper than the south, and had 4 corries, each with a tarn. I was familiar with these geographical features from visiting the Scottish Highlands and the Lake District in England, but their presence indicated glaciation had occurred here, at some point in the distant past.

A sheltered spot...yes, that's snow!

However, I don't think there is any other evidence that the Falklands were once glaciated, so it was a surprise to see these features at all. We soon found a broad ledge below the ridge out of the wind, and we had an enjoyable picnic looking down 1,000 feet into a corrie containing a few snow patches.

After the refreshments, we continued about another mile east along the ridge, and then dropped down about 800 feet into a corrie. One of our group wanted to dip his fingers (it was too cold for toes), into each tarn, and so we continued west, sheltered from the gale under the long ridge.

On the summit ridge.

More snow!

The most easterly tarn

Tarn comes from Old Norse.  This article describes how they are formed.  The tarn above was sitting in an almost-perfect bowl, formed by ice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarn_%28lake%29

Looking back west along the summit

Tarn from the east

View from the north, looking southwest.

Another tarn with lots of packed snow.

Heading for the Black Tarn

Black Tarn

After a few hours of checking out the corries and touching the tarns, we came to a stunning view, overlooking the famous Black Tarn. The only problem was there was no obvious route down to it! After a few dead ends, we clambered down a steep stone run, sometimes using hands and bottoms to negotiate a route through these huge boulder fields.

Steep stone run

This article gives more information about how stone runs are formed >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_run

Very steep stone run...

Charles Darwin, when he saw them during his visit of 1833, en route to the Galapagos and his Theory of Evolution, called them "rivers of stone".  Although my native Scotland now has a similar climate to the Falklands, it was completed glaciated during the last Ice Age, so this geological formation never existed in my homeland.

Black Tarn, looking south to Mt Usborne

The views were worth it! They reminded me of some dramatic scenery in the north-west of Scotland. Well worth exploring if you can't get to the Falklands!

Transport awaits. One last stone run to cross.

Climbing out of the bowl, we realised we now had no protection from the gale, and it was going to be a long, tiring slog back to the cars. Despite being marginally downhill, we still had several more stone runs to cross, and a steep hillside to walk round. I was very glad of my Nordic Walking poles which kept me upright most of the time.

Returning to the road

Arriving back at the cars about 6 hours after setting off, we could check GPS and pedometers as we waited for the stragglers. I had walked for 5 hours (sat down for 1 hour), and covered 10 miles (16 kilometres). My pedometer said I had taken 22,992 steps, and who was I to argue?  It felt like it!

Follow that car!

Friends kindly transported me back to Stanley, where a hot bath and cold beer were all I was thinking about......

Another Grand Day Out!  Thanks to all who made it possible.
Peter