We have been very lax at updating the blog, so now that I am captive on the airbridge again for oh too many hours to think about, I will try to remember what we have been doing for the last three weeks since leaving Phoebe at school.
What comes to mind instantly, is entertaining – lots of it – lunches and dinners – mostly at our house, but also Battle of Britain night in the mess – very RAF, wth low flying planes over the tables, a typhoon fly past (I tried so hard not to flinch as it roared up above us, but I failed miserably. It was SOOO loud) – and looking after house guests.
We seem to have established ourselves something of a routine; guests, whether the military or government variety, generally appear on the Monday flight and stay until the Friday, with Supper on Monday, a dinner on Thursday, and bits and bobs inbetween as needed. Will I ever manage to be sociable at breakfast? Not sure. In addition, we seem to be fitting in a regular lunch, to give the spouses (not actually all ladies – three house husbands and counting..) a chance to meet new people, and to guage the feeling of the community.. Friday lunch times are becoming the day for Section lunch, with 15 or so from a specific dept. enjoying food other than mess rations for a change, and having the opportunity to talk shop in more relaxed surroundings.
We are, as you can see, running a small hotel, and Marc who copes with the cooking almost single handedly, is doing a good job. He sometimes looks as if steam may be coming from places other then the oven, but always declares himself to be fine, even in the face of ‘an extra one’ or the inevitable vegetarian who slipped through our screening! I contribute the odd biscuit or cake and try to control the few evening meals when we are on our own, in an effort to rebalance the huge quantities of lamb and beef and food in general!
Everyone works a 6 day week on island, and with our house so rarely our own, free time is precious, but we have managed to escape to try a spot of fishing. Bill caught our tea on a beautiful sunny afternoon down at Swan Inlet. Archie was utterly confused by the small colourful thing that was swishing through the air into the water, but which he was not allowed to chase. Even more frustratingly, he was not allowed to gallop after the splashing fish, so I’m not sure he will be keen to come fishing again!
On Thursday, Bill managed to fit in time to explore the islands a little; we headed off by Landrover towards Darwin, and took the Newhaven road down to the newly built (2009) ferry port. This allows a regular ferry (the Concordia) to run between East and West Falkland, as well as support the islands; around 16 miles, and a 2 hour, regularly ‘interesting’ trip. We will try to make the jump for a few days at Christmas, but this time we just visited the very tame penguin colony which lives by the port, and watched the sea lions fishing for their lunch in the kelp forest. They porpoise up and down just like dolphins, and are magical to watch. On the return trip we stopped for coffee at the Goose Green cafe - not quite Starbucks, but very much more welcoming! - and went to visit the Bodie Creek suspension bridge (the southern most such structure in the world - and soon to be not so much of a structure given the amount of corrosion) and the Argentine war cemetery at Darwin.
This weekend, we ventured to Race Point Farm at Port san Carlos; the weather had been gruesome on Saturday, and the roads were closed again. I was convinced that we were going to lose our roof on Friday night - but by the afternoon the driving restrictions were lifted. We headed out on the Goose Green road, and turned right towards San Carlos; about 37 miles over rough roads, but only a few bogged areas. The drive took us 2 and a quarter hours, and once we had lost Darwin from our sights, we saw very few houses – Greenfield Farm, high up in the hills, and Wreck Point House, Head of the Bay House at San Carlos Water, and the three or four houses which make up the settlement – and then miles and miles and miles of beautiful, desolate moorland, winding inlets, and sheep.. Lambing has begun, and tiny lambs jump out from the diddle dee bushes and run in front of the Landrover. We finally arrived at Port san Carlos settlement – three houses, and a couple more over the hill. John and Michelle Jones put us up in their cottage, and cooked a fabulous supper. Donna and Michael from over the hill came in to say hello, and we ended up chatting until Talia, their six year old declared bath time at getting on for 10. There are no other children in the settlement; Talia goes to school with two ‘local’ children within an hour’s drive. The teacher lives at Talia’s house one week, and the other children come to her, and they alternate so that everyone has a week at home (apart from the teacher!). Once she is 11, she will go to Stanley and weekly board along with the rest of the Islands’ children. These are independent, sociable children, who have complete freedom to roam safely for miles, and complete confidence in the company of adults. They understand the countryside, and their matter-of-fact approach to the realities of farming life is refreshing.
There is no light pollution this far out; the stars came right down to the horizon, and the Southern Cross shone brightly, with the Milky Way washing across the sky. A beautiful clear night dawned into a misty Sunday morning , and once the sun had warmed the air, it was a perfect day – and magically still. We walked to the sea; the gorse is popping, the diddle dee is coming into flower. You would not have wished to be anywhere else. The bays here have huge mussel beds very close to (or sometimes at) the beach. The birds here gorge themselves on huge mussels, and the beaches are a litter of broken shells.
We were sad to leave – especially after Michelle’s lunchtime chocolate cake – but the drive back was fabulous. We drove high up into the hills and looked back at San Carlos bay; the deep blue against the acid green and yellow of the moorland. We could have stayed much longer, but we were headed home to skype Phoebe, who had spent the day in Bath, and was delighted to have found her favourite mango sorbet ice cream !
Friday 30 September 2011
Thursday 15 September 2011
Back to Mount Pleasant
So, back to our freezing windy base in the South Atlantic – but joy of joys, it was thinking about Spring as we returned home (just thinking mind you!) – only odd flurries of snow rather than metre drifts, and blue sky could be spotted. All this gave us hope that the helis would fly, and on Sunday, we were able to fly up to Volunteer point – the headland on the far north-eastern tip of East Falkland. Dropped mid morning, the heli disappeared, with the ranger pointing in the direction of the beach, and telling us to be back at 3.30. Phoebe was amused to see no landing area – just a field – the crew open the loading door as you near the ground, and appear to point to the least boggy bit to land on – very technical !
Heavy rain might have put a damper on this expedition– only a small portacabin for shelter – but we were in luck – cold but sunny all day, and the wildlife had us utterly gripped. The beaches here are pure white – caribbean white – and the sea is clear azure – with crashing waves straight from the deep Atlantic. The constant wind, catches the white horses and tosses the spray high into the air – quite magical.
There are massive kelp beds off the coasts here – as large as forests – feeding grounds for seals - and the kelp washed up on the shore is impressive – some metres long, with individual strands 30+ cm broad. My current favourite is basket kelp, which produces what can only be describes as huge wicker baskets of roots washed up on the shore – presumably used in the past for storage.
Anyway, back to the wildlife – hundreds of busy sandpipers as ever, magellan oystercatchers with their dinner suits and red eyes, and the pretty two banded plover which runs up and down jumping the waves like a toddler. Big fat flightless steamer ducks sit on the shore line and paddle about in a waddly way. Gulls are of course ever present. But more interestingly shags, cormorants, and petrels, elegant with their slim and angular wings, skimming the tops of the waves, and dropping dramatically to fish.
The high point of course, in this place, is the penguins. Two types here -the two key all-year residents; Gentoos – medium size, black and white, with orange beaks, and King penguins – tall, fabulous posture, with that impressive slash of orange across the face. They plod with a mission, beaks in the air, like old fashioned policemen, whereas the Gentoos busy around, shoulders hunched to the wind.
Such is our ignorance that we were amazed to see babies – HUGE balls of brown feathers. We were told that babies hatch at Christmas – what we didn’t realise was that the King penguin breeding cycle is 12 months; at this time of year the babies are 9 months old, and kept all together at on end of the beach in a creche, while the parents go out to fish. There were hundreds of big brown bodies, patrolled by perhaps 20 or so adults, and from time to time a group of parents would hop out of the sea, plod deliberately up the sand, and find their chick (how?) to feed it. The chicks are feisty now, and chase the parents for more and more food –it is 100% better than TV ! On this one beach, there are perhaps 3-400 King penguins, plus chicks, and probably double that number of Gentoos. Fabulous photo opportunities, because nothing runs away !
After our many cancelled trips before the holiday to Chile, we were determined to make the most of the last week before school, and so after a quiet day on Monday, we took up Jenny Luxton’s kind offer to visit Sea Lion Island (Jenny manages the island). It is vital for Bill to understand how the islands and islanders operate, and this was a fabulous opportunity to see one of the more remote areas. Sea Lion Island (atlases out please) lies to the South of East Falkland – below Bleaker, and the last land before the Antarctic (apart from the tiny landmass of Beauchene 30km further on). Jenny runs the lodge in season, which is just about to start – and she looks after birdwatchers, photographers, National Geographic teams, and general tourists, sharing her deep knowledge of the wildlife and the island. Sea Lion island is 5 miles long, and 1 mile wide at its broadest point. It is flat as a pancake, and the wind whistles over it. Her team, who all live in houses on one corner of the island, are her three chilean house staff – cooks and cleaners – and Maurice the handyman, who grew up on New Island, and has not lost the art of turning his hand to anything (as indeed is true of most islanders - I imagine as our grandparents or great grandparents were able to do, and as we now so clearly cannot.) These area a group of impressively unflappable and self reliant people. They must also have fair level of tolerance rto live so closely together with no one else on the island. They all arrived to eat with us, along with Felippo, an italian professor, who has spent the 4 months of the Elephant Seal breeding season here for the last 17 years. He and his wife Simone work at a university in the US and are world experts on Elephant Seals. Fascinating dinner conversation. He recognised every seal, knew its age and its history. Elephant Seals live to around 20, and come back to the same spot every year.
The island is lucky to have a spring fed by rain water running off the sandstone –and they have a generator, a wind turbine, and a massive veg patch. Everything is home made, and nothing is wasted. On one side of the island, they have recently installed a winch lift from a deep cove, allowing goods to be delivered in by ship – and there is also a grass landing strip outside the lodge for FIGAS tiny aircraft, which run rather like taxis round here.
So as soon as we could, we were off to the beaches; we could see the colony of Gentoos from the lodge windows, so we were after more impressive fare today…from September onwards, the Sea Lions and Elephant Seals start to return to breed. We found three huge males – perhaps 5m long, great blubbery masses (they stay on land for 3 months now until they mate, and eat nothing, losing around half their body weight, so we were seeing them at their largest). But huge as they were, they still had those adorable seal eyes, and a rare gentle look about them as they waved their flippers at us –although when they trumpeted, the reason for the name became clear -and of course their trunk – like noses, which only the males display, and only after 5 years or so. Soon, the fighting will start amongst the males – the scars were very evident, and Jenny reported watching Seals rearing up, dripping with blood. There were also a couple of females – half the size, beige in colour, and much more pretty and seal like. The next day, we found double the number, and Jenny assures us that harems of 60-70 females will appear. There is a birthing pool across the island, and this is where the Orcas come later in the year – they have two pods which return annually, of 4 and 5 whales – and they take 4 or 5 seal pups each year. You may remember the National Geographic documentary.
On the other side of the island, the Sea lions were also arriving – we found two lying in the massive tussock grass. These are the chaps to be wary of – they are great solid creatures, with necks as thick as the trunk of a man, and they can reputedly move as fast as a galloping horse if necessary. It is extremely inadvisable to get between a Sea Lion and the sea. Felippo had stories of seal bites, which would certainly concentrate the mind – but then he is attaching satellite receivers to them….
The tussock grass is vital to knot together the dunes, and it gives the island a tropical look. Davies, sailing past in the 16th century, reported that palm trees covered the island, and from a distance, it does take on a Caribbean look – until you put a toe in the water..
What else did we see? Peregrine Falcons, hundreds of Upland Geese as normal, but also the rarer Ruddy Headed Goose. And around 20 Striated caracaras, along with a sole pair of Crested Caracaras. These birds are impressive birds of prey, with a no nonsense beak and set of claws. Their local name is Johnny Rook – they are magpies by nature – curious collectors of shiny things, and spectacular thieves. These are sizeable, powerful birds who actively seek you out and watch you like a spy. You are ill advised to turn your back on them – they often wallop you on the back of the head, just because they can. They are wily, and hunt in pairs or packs. They eat the Upland Geese – these are birds as big as a large British Goose – bringing them down between two of them. And packs of 6 or so will bring down and eat a sheep. Maurice had tales of watching the drama as a boy, where Caracaras group, split and select a sheep before downing it.
We didn’t want to leave Sea Lion island – it was a heavenly escape from the reality of 24 hour army camp - and we were nearly stranded; the heli is sadly not there for our pleasure , and only picks us up on duty routes, so when it was called to stand in for the Air Sea Rescue heli, we had to wait for a few more hours – not a real sacrifice, although a slight heart flutter, as we were hosting a dinner party that night, and arrived home about an hour before the guests!
Pottering days now, before Phoebe and I head back for the school run – first day back Wed 7th. It will be another world.
Heavy rain might have put a damper on this expedition– only a small portacabin for shelter – but we were in luck – cold but sunny all day, and the wildlife had us utterly gripped. The beaches here are pure white – caribbean white – and the sea is clear azure – with crashing waves straight from the deep Atlantic. The constant wind, catches the white horses and tosses the spray high into the air – quite magical.
There are massive kelp beds off the coasts here – as large as forests – feeding grounds for seals - and the kelp washed up on the shore is impressive – some metres long, with individual strands 30+ cm broad. My current favourite is basket kelp, which produces what can only be describes as huge wicker baskets of roots washed up on the shore – presumably used in the past for storage.
Anyway, back to the wildlife – hundreds of busy sandpipers as ever, magellan oystercatchers with their dinner suits and red eyes, and the pretty two banded plover which runs up and down jumping the waves like a toddler. Big fat flightless steamer ducks sit on the shore line and paddle about in a waddly way. Gulls are of course ever present. But more interestingly shags, cormorants, and petrels, elegant with their slim and angular wings, skimming the tops of the waves, and dropping dramatically to fish.
The high point of course, in this place, is the penguins. Two types here -the two key all-year residents; Gentoos – medium size, black and white, with orange beaks, and King penguins – tall, fabulous posture, with that impressive slash of orange across the face. They plod with a mission, beaks in the air, like old fashioned policemen, whereas the Gentoos busy around, shoulders hunched to the wind.
Such is our ignorance that we were amazed to see babies – HUGE balls of brown feathers. We were told that babies hatch at Christmas – what we didn’t realise was that the King penguin breeding cycle is 12 months; at this time of year the babies are 9 months old, and kept all together at on end of the beach in a creche, while the parents go out to fish. There were hundreds of big brown bodies, patrolled by perhaps 20 or so adults, and from time to time a group of parents would hop out of the sea, plod deliberately up the sand, and find their chick (how?) to feed it. The chicks are feisty now, and chase the parents for more and more food –it is 100% better than TV ! On this one beach, there are perhaps 3-400 King penguins, plus chicks, and probably double that number of Gentoos. Fabulous photo opportunities, because nothing runs away !
After our many cancelled trips before the holiday to Chile, we were determined to make the most of the last week before school, and so after a quiet day on Monday, we took up Jenny Luxton’s kind offer to visit Sea Lion Island (Jenny manages the island). It is vital for Bill to understand how the islands and islanders operate, and this was a fabulous opportunity to see one of the more remote areas. Sea Lion Island (atlases out please) lies to the South of East Falkland – below Bleaker, and the last land before the Antarctic (apart from the tiny landmass of Beauchene 30km further on). Jenny runs the lodge in season, which is just about to start – and she looks after birdwatchers, photographers, National Geographic teams, and general tourists, sharing her deep knowledge of the wildlife and the island. Sea Lion island is 5 miles long, and 1 mile wide at its broadest point. It is flat as a pancake, and the wind whistles over it. Her team, who all live in houses on one corner of the island, are her three chilean house staff – cooks and cleaners – and Maurice the handyman, who grew up on New Island, and has not lost the art of turning his hand to anything (as indeed is true of most islanders - I imagine as our grandparents or great grandparents were able to do, and as we now so clearly cannot.) These area a group of impressively unflappable and self reliant people. They must also have fair level of tolerance rto live so closely together with no one else on the island. They all arrived to eat with us, along with Felippo, an italian professor, who has spent the 4 months of the Elephant Seal breeding season here for the last 17 years. He and his wife Simone work at a university in the US and are world experts on Elephant Seals. Fascinating dinner conversation. He recognised every seal, knew its age and its history. Elephant Seals live to around 20, and come back to the same spot every year.
The island is lucky to have a spring fed by rain water running off the sandstone –and they have a generator, a wind turbine, and a massive veg patch. Everything is home made, and nothing is wasted. On one side of the island, they have recently installed a winch lift from a deep cove, allowing goods to be delivered in by ship – and there is also a grass landing strip outside the lodge for FIGAS tiny aircraft, which run rather like taxis round here.
So as soon as we could, we were off to the beaches; we could see the colony of Gentoos from the lodge windows, so we were after more impressive fare today…from September onwards, the Sea Lions and Elephant Seals start to return to breed. We found three huge males – perhaps 5m long, great blubbery masses (they stay on land for 3 months now until they mate, and eat nothing, losing around half their body weight, so we were seeing them at their largest). But huge as they were, they still had those adorable seal eyes, and a rare gentle look about them as they waved their flippers at us –although when they trumpeted, the reason for the name became clear -and of course their trunk – like noses, which only the males display, and only after 5 years or so. Soon, the fighting will start amongst the males – the scars were very evident, and Jenny reported watching Seals rearing up, dripping with blood. There were also a couple of females – half the size, beige in colour, and much more pretty and seal like. The next day, we found double the number, and Jenny assures us that harems of 60-70 females will appear. There is a birthing pool across the island, and this is where the Orcas come later in the year – they have two pods which return annually, of 4 and 5 whales – and they take 4 or 5 seal pups each year. You may remember the National Geographic documentary.
On the other side of the island, the Sea lions were also arriving – we found two lying in the massive tussock grass. These are the chaps to be wary of – they are great solid creatures, with necks as thick as the trunk of a man, and they can reputedly move as fast as a galloping horse if necessary. It is extremely inadvisable to get between a Sea Lion and the sea. Felippo had stories of seal bites, which would certainly concentrate the mind – but then he is attaching satellite receivers to them….
The tussock grass is vital to knot together the dunes, and it gives the island a tropical look. Davies, sailing past in the 16th century, reported that palm trees covered the island, and from a distance, it does take on a Caribbean look – until you put a toe in the water..
What else did we see? Peregrine Falcons, hundreds of Upland Geese as normal, but also the rarer Ruddy Headed Goose. And around 20 Striated caracaras, along with a sole pair of Crested Caracaras. These birds are impressive birds of prey, with a no nonsense beak and set of claws. Their local name is Johnny Rook – they are magpies by nature – curious collectors of shiny things, and spectacular thieves. These are sizeable, powerful birds who actively seek you out and watch you like a spy. You are ill advised to turn your back on them – they often wallop you on the back of the head, just because they can. They are wily, and hunt in pairs or packs. They eat the Upland Geese – these are birds as big as a large British Goose – bringing them down between two of them. And packs of 6 or so will bring down and eat a sheep. Maurice had tales of watching the drama as a boy, where Caracaras group, split and select a sheep before downing it.
We didn’t want to leave Sea Lion island – it was a heavenly escape from the reality of 24 hour army camp - and we were nearly stranded; the heli is sadly not there for our pleasure , and only picks us up on duty routes, so when it was called to stand in for the Air Sea Rescue heli, we had to wait for a few more hours – not a real sacrifice, although a slight heart flutter, as we were hosting a dinner party that night, and arrived home about an hour before the guests!
Pottering days now, before Phoebe and I head back for the school run – first day back Wed 7th. It will be another world.
Sunday 4 September 2011
The High Andes
Monday saw us, well Marketa actually, load up the 4x4 to take us to the Altiplano lakes. A 125 km drive south gave us yet another appreciation of the scale of the salt flats and, as we climbed the mountains (still in the vehicle – you will be getting the sense of our level of adventure) in the south east we could also get a sense of the scale of the lithium extraction plants at the southern end of the flats. These facilities occupy a huge area – from a distance of 100km at the same level (i.e. from San Pedro) they appear as a white smudge on the horizon, which are actually the vast evaporation areas (apologies to readers for my limited span of adjectives in conveying the scale of everything in the Atacama). It seems that (in this, one of the most arid regions of the world) lithium (and other minerals) is extracted through dissolution in water and recovered after evaporation in giant evaporation flats (scores of acres large). [All this occurs in an area in which 96% of the natural water flowing off the mountains evaporates; it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that it is an environment very much on the edge.]
The Altiplanic lakes are at some 4, 300m ASL and, boy, could we tell. Maybe it was due to the intense cold (wind chill taking the temp to significantly below Zero despite the bright sun) and wind but one rapidly became light-headed if doing anything other than walk steadily. As ever, the scenery was astounding: bright lakes glistening in the sun and wind, surrounded by towering peaks, but set off by a very heavy covering of drifted snow, although now mostly ice this had drifted up to 2m in places.
At this altitude there were small herds of vicuna – one can only imagine that their wool is a good insulator and wind break! Lunch was an ‘interesting affair’: a delicious picnic, complete with tables, chairs, wine glasses etc – and all perched on the edge of a 30m gorge and in a strong wind; one was not tempted to lean too far back in one’s chair in case of distracting the rock climbers below by falling past them!
The High Andes theme continued on Tuesday with a visit to the geysers at Taitio – the highest geyser field in the world at some 4,200m. The particular highlight of the day was the excessively early start (0530 hr departure) but we revelled in the fact that with our own guide we did not have to join the larger tourist tours which start at 0400 hrs. An ‘interesting’ drive for some 1½ hours through the dark, debating which is the worst: Chilean or Falklands roads (there is little in it) and attempting to avoid frozen snow drifts (in the middle of the high desert) brought us to Taitio just before dawn.
The temperature was –11oC (and this with no wind) but that did little to detract from the impact of the place: dozens of fumaroles in a vast caldera, all producing differing quantities of steam, making the place positively Dante-like. (The best time to appreciate the spectacle is at dawn when the temperature differential allows the steam to be seen at its best – obviously as it is getting light, too! – and before the sun rapidly warms the air to lose the effect.) The 3 of us must have spent over 1½ hours admiring the pools of boiling water (another physics lesson here: altitude = low pressure = low boiling point; more groans from Phoebe as she desperately tried to avoid thinking about education) and columns of steam, whilst the other tours all seemed to disappear with the appearance of the sun. (Either their guides were vampires or had pressing schedules to keep.) We, on the other hand, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with hot chocolate heated in a geyser before venturing down the mountains to appreciate the spectacular scenery we had missed earlier in the pitch black. We did the obligatory tourist stop on the way down at a small hamlet to sample barbequed llama (at least that’s what we were told it was, it could have been decent lamb – either way it was good; although Gill took a greater liking to cheese empanada – think deep fried cheese pancake and you begin to get the idea!). After all this exertion it was only fitting that we spent a couple of hours before lunch in a hot spring a few km above San Pedro – sheer luxury in pleasantly warm water in a series of pools at the bottom of a gorge. (The only drawback being that it had been developed by one of the larger hotels in San Pedro – but we are not talking spa luxury here; we had to bring our own fluffy towels.)
Having got up earlier than was good for any of us it was only right that this was the only night that we could go star-gazing. Despite our concerns that none of us would stay awake, we all found the 2½ hours of introduction to the stars, the zodiac, the Milky Way and the opportunity to view the same through a series of telescopes to be absolutely fascinating. With some of the clearest skies in the world, it was a total revelation (to the extent that what I had assumed to be light pollution from San Pedro was actually astral light – mind-blowing!). The Canadian astrologer was a mine of information and help – e.g. the constellation of Sagittarius (Phoebe’s sign) is a tad difficult to locate if you are looking for a half man/half goat thing but when you look for a ‘teapot’ it jumps out at you!!
Having come only to visit Chile, we could not turn down the chance to add some more stamps to our passports by visiting Bolivia – well, the smallest corner of said country closest to San Pedro (about 50 km as the crow, or Andean equivalent, might fly) but rather further by road. Initially a very good quality international road, full of car transporters carrying second cars to Paraguay (mostly from Australia Bolivia
Our return to Santiago was almost mundane after the previous week – marred only by the inevitable delay to the flight and excessive (and nail-biting) wait for one of our bags and the threat of major demonstrations in central Santiago Chile was occupied with spending far too much time and money shopping for beautifully soft alpaca scarves, shawls and sundry other goods to cram into our otherwise full bags for the trip back to the Falklands . With a 0615 hrs check-in, you can imagine the general enthusiasm of the Aldridge family on the Saturday morning; a state of mind only improved by the late arrival of our taxi at 0605 hrs (for a 20 mile trip – we arrived within 25 mins…). Naturally, it was all worth while when we had to wait a further 1½ hours when our plane was declared to be unserviceable – at this stage, Phoebe was beginning to speculate about missing the return to school but sadly for her LAN Chile are not totally inefficient (whilst the Argentines are Italians who believe themselves to be British, the Chileans are rather more Germanic in their culture..) - they got us back to the Falklands well in time for tea!
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