The Falkland Islands are 671km from Ushuaia, 1,550km from South Georgia, and as a British Overseas Territory, it is 12,978km from Great Britain. They’re surrounded by the South Atlantic Ocean in the midst of the furious fifties and home to the hefty South American sea lions, numerous characterful penguins including the rockhopper, Gentoo, and Magellanic, an abundance of albatross, a swathe of ducks and geese…and human beings!
Walking along the shoreline of Stanley—the capital of the Falkland Islands—you can gaze out across the kelp strewn shore where the geese are rooting around for morsels of food toward the rugged rolling green hills. Then you can turn around and see a pub, a supermarket, a gift shop, a bank, a post office, another pub, a police station, a school, a hospital, and another pub. We have arrived in civilization.
It is quite a peculiar and sudden transition. For the past 17 days we have been immersed in some of the wildest, remote, extreme, and clearly uninhabitable locations the Earth has to offer. Our last stop in South Georgia was an amalgamation of birds, seals, penguins, and Zodiacs. Today the Zodiacs were nowhere to be seen—buses have taken over.
Whether we chose to ride the buses or enjoy a walk into town in the sunshine, our options for enjoying Stanley and its surroundings were vast and varied. The day could be spent at your leisure. You could take off and enjoy whichever parts of Stanley you desired. Or, join a guided tour and take in a local working farm, exert yourself hiking up Mount Tumbledown or observe the Magellanic penguins at Gypsy Cove. Or head to the Globe Tavern for a pint. Just be sure to make that last bus back to the ship…
