Spring Garland

As the years roll by here we get used to the annual cycle, largely noticeable as a result of nature’s decisions and whims. For example, the Falklands’ national flower (the Pale Maiden) emerges to let everyone know that things are getting brighter (although not all of them are fully out and showing themselves off yet, obviously). Similarly, it gets to that time of year again when Milo, our beloved sheep, is showing signs that things are hotting up for him and it’s high time he had a trim before the o-zone depleted sunshine starts to rain down on him. Sheep aficionados will be pleased to note that he’s booked in for a trim this Sunday (potentially more on that story later). As well as Milo’s annual undertaking, Han is gearing up for another cost-saving experiment on the tomato and potato front as we prep our polytunnel for the upcoming shiny season. In addition, there was a significant cruise ship in today, marking the start of the tourism season that brings c.60,000 visitors to the islands each Summer and contributes significantly to the economy of the island (and, might I add, the queues in the Post Office and Bank).

These cyclical goings-on are becoming part of the norm for us now in our 4th year of living here and add to a very tangible sense of anticipation for the incoming Summer (the finest time of year to be here). We’ve not locked down our plans for the Summer yet, but we’re excited to take full advantage of the increased access to Camp and the mildly more predictable weather. Emphasis on the word ‘mildly’ there.

All of that being said on the routine front, we are always keen to take advantage of new opportunities and followers of the blog will note how many new experiences we’ve been lucky enough to experience. This year, we say goodbye to two friends leaving the Islands with something that had become something of a Birthday tradition for one of them – the Falklands Treasure Hunt! This game saw randomly-allocated teams charging around Stanley hunting all kinds of items, people, animals, photos and answers. As a member of last year’s winning team, I had a proud title to defend, as I was keen to highlight:

Winners’ badge and cup from the last Hunt

Devastatingly, neither Han nor I were to place in the top 3 this year, which we can only put down to a mis-count or the fact the judges knew I would, admittedly, be insufferable with yet another victory to my name.

In order to help the mourning process as the loss of my treasured title, I wanted to achieve SOMETHING over the half-term week. Some regular Pengoing South addicts might recall that our trip to Saunders last year involved a return Islander journey with a view or two to admire:

Shipwrecks aplenty look excellent from the air

The Lady Liz

The iconic Lady Elizabeth on the right is a daily site for us and I’ve seen it up close on several occasions, but the other wreck is the Garland, beached across the water from the settlements of Goose Green and Darwin. She was built in Liverpool in 1832 but in 1900 she put into Stanley with damage caused to her bottom plates by broken jars of acid. After a survey she was condemned and later towed to Darwin to be used as a coal hulk. I’d only seen her from afar and she’s not easy to get close to on land. There was only one thing for it:

As a once-keen whitewater kayaker, it was excellent to get back in a kayak again (albeit a sea kayak) so I look forward to doing more kayaking here when I can. It’s just a shame no whitewater exists among all this peat. The Falklands doesn’t have EVERYTHING, after all.

Open up, Sealion!

One key to the post-holiday blues is a pre-emptive strike. After 6 weeks off the islands, we thought it might be worth reminding ourselves of some of the reasons why we love this place so much so, before we left, we sent a message to Micky at Sealion Island; one of the jewels in the Falklands’ crown. Last year we were staying at Sealion Island on the first weekend of their tourist season, so we thought we’d begin a new tradition and open up their season with them again on the long weekend that is lovingly created by Peat Cutting Monday (the first Monday in October is set aside for this Falklands unique holiday).

Sealion Island isn’t a cheap weekend away, what with the cost of a chartered FIGAS Islander flight (£168 return each) but for the experiences you get there and the excellent hospitality, it’s always worth it. If you’re into your bird life then all of the islands hold a great deal in store for you (almost all photos by Han on this post):

Upland Geese nesting

Falklands flightless steamer duck

Common snipe

Striated Caracara – a rare bird of prey but not here in the FI

Sinker/Souther Giant Petrel

Gentoos nesting

Penguins CAN fly!

Magellanics pairing up and burrowing

Interestingly, the Rockhopper penguins also return to the islands after their winter away on the same date each year and it coincided with our visit (the 29th September) so we did come across 2 of them. They steadily increase in number as the days go on.

Sealion Island is also home to a huge colony of one of the funniest and oddest animals here; the elephant seals. The Elephant Seal Research group have an annual presence on the island (it’s well worth following them on Facebook) and provide a lot of information about the habits of these monsters but this time of year they’re giving birth and the males and gathering them into harems waiting to repeat the (far from elegant) breeding cycle:

OK, not monsters exactly

Where they get their name

The elephant seal pups also attract the orca whales to the island, but we were visiting with our cursed friend Helene. Some people visit Sealion and see the orca every time. Some people visit and only see them some of the time. Our record currently stands at about 50% of our visits. Helene has been 6 times and not seen them once. In fact, they’ve even appeared on the same days as her visit; the morning before she arrived and the afternoon after she left. She’s cursed, so we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them this visit but our consolation was that it gets a little bit funnier every visit she makes. Still, there were other treats to see:

This sealion was sleeping among the elephant seals, a little out of place

This young male sealion was closely guarding his female

An unexpected treat, a leopard seal asleep on the beach

Stunning sunrises and sunsets, as always

We look forward to returning to Sealion again some time (perhaps opening the season next year) but if you ever find yourself here, be sure to add it to your list.

Followers of the blog will know we’ve been to Sealion many a time now. We’ve been extremely lucky to see and do most of what we have wanted to in our time here. We have, however, still got a few more items to tick off the to-do list so watch this space and make sure you’re ticking things off your own to-do list.

Home?

It’s often stated that the Falklands are one of the most remote communities in the World. It’s not that we’re physically that difficult to get to as such – we have an airport with weekly flights, after all. We’re in comparative connected luxury if you speak to our overseas territory friends on Ascension Island at the moment, or Tristan da Cunha. The thing is, logistically speaking, getting here isn’t all that simple. You need to jump on an 18 hour RAF flight from Brize Norton at a cost of £1600 for residents, £2222 for non-residents. You can also fly for 2 days via South America but there is only one flight per week from Chile and that is usually booked up. That means that people here don’t often get off the islands. Even the journey itself is a little unusual, you don’t usually get this treatment at Heathrow:

Typhoons waiting on the runway at RAF Mount Pleasant

As a result of this, we’ve only been back to our respective home countries twice in the last three years and avid followers of the blog will recall that both were for reasons that didn’t lend themselves to a relaxing time. This winter/summer (depending on your hemisphere), however, we booked an extended trip ‘home’ (with some other jaunts thrown in for good measure).

Naturally, I guess, trips off the islands involve catching up (read: binging) on those things that you simply don’t get or see for the time that you live remotely. This could be anything from M&S Percy Pigs to attending events or whatever might take your fancy. The same goes with how you might choose to spend your time away so I disappeared North for some Lake District scrambling with some good friends that I haven’t scrambled with since before we made the move, which was incredibly wet but both the company, the green landscape and the climbing made a good change from the white grass wilderness of the Falklands. Han stayed in London also catching up on missed opportunities: a girly weekend of pampering.

 

One of the gill-scrambles we climbed

A wet climb even without the rain

Up Jack’s Rake, carefully!

The slight mishap: a flooded campsite

From there, we headed South to where I grew up to catch up with family in Kent for a few days before flying across to Ireland to meet up with Han’s family and throw a party at the scene of our wedding one year on. Thank you to everyone who made the effort to come along, it was great to see so many people travel to celebrate with us.

It would seem that our trip home was to be characterised by several things: a lot of miles, a lot of walking and a lot of friends and family. We, of course, took the opportunity to see some of Ireland’s treats while we were there including the Clare Glens river walks and the excellent Spike Island historic fort/prison:

We’ve been missing these: treeeees!

Walking the woods

Waterfalls, also missing in the Falklands

Taking the boat out to Spike Island from Cobh

The entrance

Spooky buildings

The old cells

Ireland was able to provide greenery, historic sites and loved ones but it wasn’t able to provide one other thing that we have been lacking a little: sunny, sunny weather. For that we headed off to wonderful Croatia! We were spending two nights in Pula in the North, before chartering a yacht to spend some time sailing around some of Croatia’s small islands for a touch of familiarity for us. Historic Pula was first on our list and it didn’t disappoint for this keen historian:

Pula’s impressive amphitheatre

Roman mosaics

Waiting for the show

Temple time

From Pula, the outer islands beckoned so we zipped out to Cres, Losinj, Unije, Ilovik and Susak. Coming from a small island nation, it was great to see the individual characteristics of the different islands and it was oddly familiar seeing the ways of life on each one. In particular, the island of Susak has grown without any cars on so the alleyway-streets and olde world charm were reminiscent of another era (something we’re used to from the Falklands but not to that extreme):

Our first swimming spot

Osor – not an eyesore

Croatian sunsets rival Falklands

Susak – a World without cars

With our annual sun exposure topped up, we flew back to Ireland for a few days, taking in a few more sights and then zipped back across to the UK to continue the theme of ‘things we don’t get in the Falklands’. Namely; professional development. As well as doing some work in a hospital, Han had booked into a course as remote island living can mean that you’re a little out of the loop when it comes to your profession so it’s important to make the most of time off the islands in that sense. We then dropped down to London for a night out with our Falklands friend James before a last-minute trip to Berlin to see our friend Kyra (of Zuckerfee fame). As a historian, my (shockingly) first trip to Berlin was spent taking in as much as possible of the history of Berlin but also enjoying the fascinating juxtapositions that this has resulted in today – stunning period properties seen alongside Soviet concrete blocks and very modern developments all co-existing with an arts scene that rivals any capital in the World. I liked Berlin and, luckily, we left enough unseen to warrant a return trip:

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Is it a Holocaust Memorial or a selfie opportunity? Modern society so often disappoints.

Site of Trash – the location of Hitler’s bunker

The communist ideal

What it took to enforce it -the Wall

One of 3 Nazi flak towers, we did the underground tour – excellent!

The old and the new

Add into the mix a return trip to London for a few days, before heading to Salisbury for our traditional few days with my brother’s family and we ticked off a few more things we couldn’t do or get here in our remote island home before flying back South. All in all, both Han and I have many things that we miss about our respective ‘homes’ but the return to the islands and our welcome back from so many good friends has been a lovely reminder of the benefits of living in a small community and does make it difficult not to think of this remote outpost as home too.
At least 22,260 miles were covered in our trip, so you would have thought that that would keep us going for a while in terms of travel, but we’d already lined up something a little special for our return so stay tuned for that.