Tuesday, 11 January 2011 – Falkland Islands

PENGUIN PARADISE

The remainder of this cruise is going to have to be pretty extraordinary to beat today! We didn’t get off as early as we had hoped but when we did we found our drivers and their 4WDs waiting for us. Forty passengers booked with Patrick Watts to go to Volunteer Point to view the large king penguin colony - 25 of the group were CC members.

There were 12 vehicles in our convoy and I joined a couple from Alabama in Toni’s vehicle for the cross country drive. Toni is a sixth generation Falkland Islander and the drive across the countryside provided us with a great opportunity to learn more about island life from a local – and her experience of living through the Falklands war in 1982. Argentina is trying to strong arm them again now by forcing the other South American countries to refuse to let shipping use their ports for refuelling before going to the Falklands, and they are even now trying to put pressure on South Africa to also ban ships conveying goods and supplies to the island. It will be interesting to keep an eye on developments here.  

Once we left Stanley the road was good for a few kilometres before turning onto a very dusty gravel road. It continued this way until we reached a large farm, below, where we waited for all the vehicles to catch up.

From here we went offroad, through paddocks where the first vehicle opened the gates and the last vehicle through closed them after us. Definitely not recommended for people suffering from back problems – otherwise it was quite an exciting ride. One vehicle became bogged and required help to get it free but after more than 2 hours we arrived at Volunteer Point. This is private property but is home to over 2,000 king penguins, plus gentoos and magellanic penguins. Hopefully these few photos show what a great time I had photographing these fascinating creatures. I mainly concentrated on the king penguins, as apart from being more colourful, they were real photo hogs, being very aware of their regal bearing.

  

The gentoos had lots of chicks and mainly kept in large groups and I didn’t bother much with the shy Magellanic penguins – these are the penguins that live in burrows and, we were told, are prone to fleas. Say no more!



Gentoo penguins

After two hours we headed back to Stanley. It was quite amusing as each time we all went through the gates, the drivers good-naturedly tried to jockey for the best positions in the convoy.

 

Holding down a fence so that the vehicles can drive over it.


We arrived back in Stanley half an hour before the last tender. After a day in the sun, open air and winds I opted for dinner in the Lido and then some time spent uploading my photos. It’s hard to examine them in a lot of detail on the netbook but from what I’ve seen, I’m pretty pleased with them. The real test will be when I see them on a bigger screen at home.