Here we saw a large number of king shags on the jetty.
Amongst other birds was a night heron fishing at the edge of the harbour.
Near Hill Cove is the Falkland Islands only forest. This was originally planted in 1898 and enlarged in the 1920's it is still only a relatively small wood and many of the old, tightly packed spruce trees are looking to be reaching the end of their life. However it provides shelter for a large number of birds. There were lots of small siskins and thrushes, a pair of very noisy crested caracaras (a bird of prey) and a large group of turkey vultures.
We then proceeded along a westwards along a peninsular towards Dunbar. We stopped for a long time on our way out and back at a point overlooking a sandy bay where we watched dolphins playing. There must have been at least 20 constantly surfing the waves and leaping out of the water and it was amazing sitting watching them.
We passed Dunbar, an attractive settlement with a yacht moored in the harbour and as the new road continued decided to explore further.
Having passed a road builders camp, small quarries and numbers of large earth moving machinery we eventually came to the end of the road - literally.
Road making seems to consist of skimming off the topsoil, unrolling a tough membrane and then laying and compressing stone on top of it.
On our way back we visited Crooked Inlet, another settlement with several houses, a wool shed and an old slipway in the sheltered inlet.
Just as we were approaching Shallow Bay again we saw a variable hawk on the ground near the road plucking an adult upland goose which it had killed which must have been no mean feat.
We were pleased to find the stone cottage vacated and moved in. It was really nice to be able to relax on our own although the boiler had run out of fuel so there was no heating or hot water.
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