Saunders Island 3

A cold and noisy night

We settled to bed fairly early but with the gale blowing it was extremely cold. Simon and John had quite thick warm sleeping bags and seemed quite snug but my basic Argos cheapie, suitable for sleepovers on friends floors was not really up to the job. However by the time I had donned long thermal undies, a fleece jumper, a fleece jacket, a hat, woolly socks and another pair of socks on my hands it was not too bad. John found this all very amusing!

With the gale blowing all night the tent was flapping noisily and the poles bending alarmingly as well as the sea roaring. The campsite is surrounded by magellanic penguin burrows, the nearest being only about 3 metres from the tent. These penguins are locally known as jackasses due to the loud braying sound they make. I had thought that they did this in the evening and early morning but we soon discovered that they actually continue all night!

Whilst eating breakfast the next morning I was commenting that a year previously on that day we had been skiing in the French Alps with Hannah and Simon. Minutes later a sudden hailstorm hit us turning the scenery into something not dissimilar to the Alps. However the sun was shining again soon and we set off back along the beach the mile or so to the bird colonies on the cliffs to see the rockhopper penguins and black browed albatrosses.

Saunders Island 2

By the time we had set up camp we were very glad to brew a cup of tea before going exploring. Below the Swiss Hotel water is available from a hose which taps a spring in a little gully. It only trickles very slowly so it takes quite a while to fill a container but there are always penguins to watch while you wait.

A bit further along the hill is a pit latrine in a very cosy little shed which is securely wired down to large metal stakes. There is a window which looks out across the hillside and out to sea - it must be a loo with one of the best views in the world. Just outside the loo was a magellanic penguin's burrow with an adult and chick who always seemed to stand to attention when you visited as if they were on duty or waiting to collect your money. Once when I was in there an enormous gust of wind shook the hut and the parent penguin got blown off its feet and down the hill. It looked slightly put out as it trudged back up again!

We walked back along the beach, getting blasted by the blowing sand. John was wearing shorts and his legs got really red and painful. It was harder when we returned against the wind. There is a skeleton of a small whale on the beach and a lot of gentoo penguins were coming and going in and out of the sea.

At the end of the beach we climbed up the steep hillside until we came to the first colony of birds - a mixture of rockhopper penguins and imperial shags. They are all mixed up together with adults and chicks and was generally very raucous and crowded. We didn't proceed any further that evening as we wanted to get dinner cooked and have an early night.

progress and frustrations

On Monday I went back to the hospital, had the plaster removed and my hand X rayed. This showed that it is healing well so I am now wearing a splint and have to go back again in 2 weeks. I can take the splint off to have a bath which is lovely.

Well we eventually got the 8 holes dug (at least John did!) and the foundation poles sited into them for the polytunnel. Trying to get them firmly packed around with stones and rocks at the same time as ensuring they were in the right position, level and upright took some time but we more or less succeeded.
It was quite exciting to get the pieces for the framework out and start fitting them together. It was then that we discovered that the clamps that hold the hoops to the ridgepole were missing. If only I had checked it all when it arrived or even when we first started to think about putting it up. I rang the firm I bought it from and they are hopefully posting them out by airmail, but will they arrive in time for John to finish erecting it? Temporarily we have secured the joints with cable ties and duct tape. At the moment John is in the garage building the doors and door frames.
When work on the polytunnel came to a halt John decided to press on with the rockery which is very impressive and much better than having rocks and stones all over the garden. He worked really hard moving all the stones and getting them into position. I said I could give him a reference for landscape gardening. I just need to plant up the spaces between the rocks and hopefully by next year it will look really pretty.
Last night the sky over the harbour was particularly colourful so I took a couple of photos.

Camping on Saunders Island

Last weekend Simon took Friday and Monday off work and we visited Saunders Island which is one of the larger islands to the north of West Falkland. The island is horseshoe shaped with 3 parts joined by narrow isthmuses of land. One of these is called The Neck and is a popular destination as there is an abundance of wildlife there. On one side there is a mile long wide sandy beach and on the other a smaller bay. There is a portacabin providing basic accomodation but this was already booked so we decided to camp.
Friday morning was very windy with squally showers so our flight there was very bumpy. In fact the rest of the days flights were cancelled so we were fortunate to get there. We were met at the airstrip and taken to the settlement to wait for a group of photographers who were arriving from another island. Then we were taken in a convoy of landrovers the hours drive out to The Neck along a rough track.
We were dropped with all our baggage at the far end of the beach and pointed in the direction of the popular camping spot, known as the Swiss Hotel. This is a large overhanging rock which provides some shelter which we were very grateful for. Apparently it was named by some Swiss photographers who camped there for 6 weeks and even made a sign to hang up.
We had borrowed a brand new tent from our neighbours and managed to erect and secure it with some extra strong pegs and several guy ropes tied round large rocks but as the wind had now reached severe gale force, and probably gusting to force 10 or 11, the poles were bending ominously and there was a great deal of flapping.
The view from the campsite is stunning and the wind was lifting the waves into clouds of spray as they broke. Further out to sea huge spirals of water were being lifted up in waterspouts and when the sun shone briefly there were rainbows passing through them.

Volunteers

Yesterday we went to Volunteers Beach again to see the king penguins. There were 16 people in a convoy of 5 vehicles. The ground was quite soft and we had a total of 8 "boggings" on the way there and back so the journeys were quite slow by the time the bogged vehicle had been towed out each time and we got under way again.
Once again it was cold and breezy and we were glad of plenty of layers of clothing. Most of the young and adult penguins have now finished moulting so were looking very smart. There are over 700 breeding pairs of king penguins there as well as juveniles and a large number of magellanic and gentoo penguins.

The king penguins incubate their egg on their feet with a big flap of skin and feathers keeping it warm. There was a small group a short distance from the main colony which we were watching. Some of the eggs have just started hatching and the young chicks stay on the parent's feet and you see the occasional little bottom or head poked out.
John thought the chicks looked like baby pteradactyls. We saw one being fed by its parent who regurgitates food and then the chick puts its head right inside the parent's beak to feed. The adults were very protective of their chicks, often pecking the neighbouring birds or whacking them over the head with a flipper.
Some of the juvenile penguins are particularly inquisitive and if you sit down will come up close to look at you.We also walked along the lovely sandy beach where penguins were coming in and out of the water and generally marching around and preening themselves.

Too busy to blog?

The reason I haven't blogged for a while isn't that we haven't done anything interesting but that we have been doing so much! With John here we have had some trips out and a fantastic, but very cold and windy, weekend on Saunders Island so there will be lots of pictures to come. Today we are off to Volunteers to show him the king penguins. In between John and I have been busy working on the polytunnel. Well he has been doing all the hard work as my hand was put back in plaster for another 2 weeks, to be reviewed Monday.

The polytunnel requires 8 deep holes for the foundation poles and 6 have now been dug. In the process several more very large stones have been added to the rockery which we are building at the same time. We also dug quite a few rocks out of the lawn in the hope of making it possible to cut the grass with a lawnmower instead of the strimmer which I find quite hard. We are just hoping we don't hit solid rock under either of the last posts.

In order to get permission to erect the polytunnel we had to guarantee to remove it before we vacate the property so instead of concreting the foundation poles in we are using anchor plates and packing stones and clay around them which is quite time consuming. Just hope it stands up to the severe winds we get here!

John has also been turning the packing crate we collected from the tip into a double compost bin for me (and doing some windsurfing).

Tourists and ships

We are now in the peak tourist season and have ships in every day. Last Friday was a particularly busy day as the Norwegian Sun was here with 1,758 passengers and the Infinity with 2,450. These ships anchor in Port William and a fleet of launches ferry people ashore. Many of them then go off by coach, minibus, taxi, landrover or an old London double-decker bus on tours around Stanley or to wildlife sites locally or further afield. However it still leaves a huge number of people wandering around Stanley (where the usual population is only about 2,500). This makes driving around town quite difficult as many seem oblivious to traffic, stepping off pavements, crossing the road without looking, wandering down the middle of the road taking photographs and even setting up a tripod in the middle of the road!
The Infinity

The Infinity, the Largs Bay and a fishing reefer in Port William

Friday was also a busy day for other shipping as the Largs Bay (a naval transport ship capable of carrying 100 tanks) and a fishing reefer were also in Port William, one of the fisheries patrol vessels was in the harbour and an oil exploration ship and a fishing boat were at FIPASS (the floating interim port and storage service further down the harbour).

View of Stanley looking in through the Narrows

January 3rd

We were grateful to have been able to dry out some of our things before we packed up and left Shallow Bay the next morning to drive back to Port Howard to get the ferry home, stopping on the way to look at some of the wreckage of a plane which had been shot down during the conflict.
There were over 1,000 Argentine troops stationed in Port Howard and a small museum next to the lodge houses various things they left behind including weapons, ration packs, uniforms, ejector seats and mines.
The return crossing was much calmer and we were able to see dolphins, a seal, a lot of penguins and various other birds. As we were coming into New Haven I noticed several colonies of gentoo penguins on the hillside just accross the bay and then we saw that there were quite a few on the beach next to where the ferry docked. We stopped to look at them and John was very amused when I sat down at the edge of the beach and two of them ran up to me to inspect me closely.
On our way home we stopped at Goose Green, a large settlement which featured in the conflict. Over 110 residents ranging in age from 3 months to over 80 were imprisoned in the community hall for a month until liberated by British soldiers.
Near Goose Green we visited the Bodie Creek Bridge. This is the world's most southerly suspension bridge and being 120m long is quite impressive. It was built in 1924, having been fabricated in London at a cost of £2,290 and shipped out here. By spanning the Bodie Creek it considerably shortened the distance sheep had to be driven from Lafonia to the shearing sheds at Goose Green.
We also stopped at Darwin where there is a circular stone corral built in 1874 in the days of the guachos. There are quite a few of these around the islands.
By the time we got home we were quite tired and dusty but it had been a good and interesting trip.

Mount Adam

The next day we decided to climb a mountain. At 700m Mount Adam is only a few metres lower than Mount Usborne, the islands highest peak. We drove to a point where the road crosses a saddle in the hills just above Hill Cove. I find my hand swells and the plaster gets tight if I am walking for long so I improvised a support for it with a bandage.
The maps we have are very old and don't have the current roads marked on them. The clouds were low and it started to drizzle as we set out, planning to follow the ridge over the 2 French Peaks, ascend Mount Donald and then drop down to another saddle before climbing Mount Adam.

We were soon in the clouds and a steady rain set in as we plodded on and on upwards. John and I decided that if this was only the first of the 2 French Peaks there was no way we were going to make it up Donald and Adam. When we eventually reached a summit and studied the map we concluded that our starting point had not been where we thought and we had reached the first summit of Mount Donald.

By this time the cloud was really thick so Simon's compass and navigational skills were invaluable as John and I completely lost our sense of direction and would have wandered around in circles. The final climb up Mount Adam was a long hard slog and we were joking that it would be good if there was a cafe at the top selling cups of tea. Suddenly some vague shapes appeared in the cloud which turned out to be 3 large stone cairns, a helipad with a football goal on it, and a collection of buildings in front of which was this sign!
Our hopes were soon dashed though as we realised this was an old army camp with abandoned generators and other equipment, although there are still functional solar panels, batteries and lights for the helipad. The last occupants appear to have been the military police on a millenium tour who had left this commemorative table made from a cable reel next to a large barbeque.

Beyond the cairns a steep cliff dropped down to a lake which we momentarily glimpsed when the cloud parted slightly. As my knee was siezing up and I was getting cold John and I started heading back down but Simon stayed at the summit longer and was rewarded by some views.
On our return trip we contoured around the side of Mount Donald rather than going back over the top. After nearly 8 hours walking we were quite pleased to see our vehicle again, remove some of our wet clothing and make that elusive cup of tea.

The best bit of the day was returning to our rented cottage to find that the boiler was working so we had heating and could soak in a hot bath!

New year's day

As we didn't know when we would be able to move into the cottage we decided to go out and explore for the day. Our first stop was at Hill Cove, a large settlement, although apparently the population has reduced from about 40 people to about 17.
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.