Tumbledown Mt, and Stanley, Falkland Islands

Hiking the scrub hills of East Falkland Island.

The memorial atop Tumbledown Moutain.

All of the hikers. Can you find John and I?

A street in Stanley.

The publican of the Victory Pub.

More views of Stanley.

Bunkering at a huge oil tanker, to be fueled for our voyage.

Monday, October 28^th.

‘Good morning all, we are arriving at the narrows of East Falkland, the temperature is a balmy 4 degrees under a clear blue sky with winds about 15 knots.’ This was part of Jonathan’s morning wakeup call. He made similar announcements every operational day (day we get off the ship).

After an early breakfast John and I and forty others did a dry landing (walking off the gangway rather than Zodiacs) in the port of Stanley. We boarded a coach and were shuttled to the starting point for the Mt William and Tumbledown hike that John signed us up for. The area was bleak, barren and brown, as spring is just starting and nothing is yet green. Still there were very stunning vistas of the quartzite rock formations. We were walking over peat bogs and climbing a hill to Mt William, through a valley and then up again to Tumbledown Mountain where the wind almost blew us back down. There is a memorial there to the Welsh Guards who died here when the attacked this spot during the Falklands War. We all posed for a photo there.

After the three hour walk we took the bus back to the ship to change out of our bog boots and into running shoes to explore the town. John and I missed the shuttle and walked for a half hour along the ‘Narrows’ shore into town to the Victory Pub where we met a number of passengers and crew from our ship. We had a couple of pints of locally brewed Iron Lady lager (named after Margaret Thatcher) and fish and chips. I sat and talked to Scobie the mechanic on our ship who takes care of the Yamaha motors on the thirteen Zodiacs on board.

John got playing darts with a local guy while Bruce and I went for a wander. We went to the Pod Gift Shop and talked to the female proprietor for a bit but bought nothing. Then we visited the Falkland Island Museum which is dedicated to the history of the islands and the 74-day Falkland Islands War.

Next we walked to the Globe Tavern for a pint of ‘Doom Bar’ beer from Cornwall. This bar was very quiet so Bruce and I walked back to the Victory for another pint. This time we had the lighter Falkland brewery beer Rockhopper. I spent a while talking to the owner, Alley. He told me he bought the bar in 1984 just after the war. He loves it here and is very thankful to the British soldiers.

I had not seen John for a while and Bruce was taking the shuttle back to the ship, so I decided to walk back to wear off a bit of the beer. I walked along a different street through town back to the ship thinking about how lucky I was to be where I am, where I am going to and doing what I want to do. Lucky me.

Dinner was a buffet style tonight with lots of selections.

John, Bruce and I headed up to the Polar Bear Bar for a last drink and listened to the crew band butchering and screeching through standard numbers. The last straw was Satisfaction.

John and I played darts with Rachael and Alice, we lost. Trying throwing darts on a rolling ship!

I also talked to Susan, the overall manager of the staff of the Expedition about GP (my guide in South Africa) and Bruce Poon Tip (the founder of GAdventures) and the company. As we were in the bar our captain sailed our ship out to a big tanker where we ‘bunkered’, refuelling to make sure we have enough fuel to get to our destination and back again. In the process our ship pulled in our stabilizers and the ship definitely rolled more until refuelling was completed. We had a rocky nights sleep.