Falkland Islands

Day 5 (21 Nov 08) saw us off load onto the town of Stanley in the British Territory of the Falkland Islands. In a crazy way it was good to hear people speaking English and not Spanish, and be able to understand them, even if I have only been away for 10 days. They have their own FI currency which is essentially GBP, but they also accept USD, so I was right for money. We ate at a cafe that turned out to be where the locals ate, so we met a colourful lady called Rosie, who is the sister of the lady we met on West Point Island, Lil. We also managed a Strongbow cider which we had been planning on since we were going to the UK!

The morning involved a 1.5hr dash to a place called Gypsy Cove which had a beautiful white beach, but unfortunately was off limits because the Argentineans laid land mines there and on other beaches during that now famous 1982 conflict with the Brits (for those of you old enough to remember). The Magellanic penguins didn’t seem to be bothered by the prospect of being landmine victims, so about 30 were standing in a huddle on the beach. There was some war remanent stuff there including a big gun thing (that is a technical term!) We made the dash because Conny and Geoff had to be back to the ship at lunch time to join their kayaking adventure. Jo and I checked out the museum which was quite good.