Driving off into the sun with the radio blaring out, the wind in my hair and the freedom to do whatever I want and go wherever I please - happy days indeed! I will admit that the similarity ended there - I had no Thelma to my Louise as everyone else had work to do, there was no Brad Pitt, no killing people, no driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon and no convertible as this is the Falklands and 4WD is the only option. However, hiring a car to explore the island was definitely a good decision - independence again! Being on a ship has many, many good points, especially when you are sailing around some of the most beautiful places in the world, but when you are used to living a fairly independent life, it can sometimes feel rather stifling. It would also have been a massive shame to miss out on seeing the scenery around the Falklands - often very desolate and remote, but undoubtedly beautiful. The roads are challenging - covered in gravel with a 40mph limit throughout for good reason. Before I left, at least three people felt the need to tell me about someone they knew who had rolled a car here, so it was with some trepidation that I set off on my circuit of East Island. In reality, after driving in Tanzania it wasn't actually too bad - no goats/chickens/children wandering around in the road to watch out for and no potholes big enough to swallow the car. There were a couple of dodgy moments - the combination of Queen 'Don't stop me now' on the radio, tiredness, over-confidence and a particularly loose section of gravel on a hill did result in some fairly interesting sliding/fish-tailing, during which time the direction of the steering wheel was entirely unrelated to the direction of forward movement. However, I survived and got to see some pretty awesome places along the way.
Reminders of the war are everywhere and I am still none the wiser as to why it is necessary to drive slowly because of the possibility of mines - how will this help matters? Surely any under the road will have already been discovered by vehicles much heavier than mine, and if one goes off next to the road it would seem better to be driving as quickly as possible in order to minimise time spent at any single location. The 40mph limit does mean that getting anywhere takes much longer than you might expect and, as can be seen from the pictures, it was often the case that I could see the road winding out for miles in front of me like a very, very long yellow ribbon. I drove a LONG way at 40mph - well over 500km, and down to the end of every little penninsula I could find. I saw no penguins and very few people (I soon realised it was customary to wave at anyone I did see and that they would invariably stop to check everything was ok everytime I pulled over to check the map or eat something or have a little snooze), but with only the radio for company it was an extremely relaxing couple of days!
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| The world's southernmost suspension bridge |
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| British Cemetery at San Carlos - 252 British servicemen died during the 1982 conflict |
Admittedly the distinct lack of penguins was mildly upsetting, but there were still many cool things to see along the way - a suspension bridge over an hour walk from the nearest proper road for a start. Driving along the off road track to the bridge was not an option for me, both because the hire cars can't be taken off road due to various incidents with inexperienced drivers in the past, and because I'm a massive pansy and wouldn't have done it on my own anyway for fear of getting horribly stuck! However, it was a lovely walk and, even though I went looking for the bridge, it was still very bizarre to turn a corner and come upon this massive metal structure in the middle of some fields (shipped out from the UK, erected in 1925 and 120m long - yes, I'm getting terribly factual these days). I also visited the British cemetery overlooking the sea at San Carlos. I always find cemeteries to be terribly emotional places, this one particularly so. The caps of lost soldiers held down by rocks, and the simple fact that it is kept in such immaculate condition give a very poignant indication that these young men have not been forgotten.
The man I rented the car from did give me some awesome advice about where to find a massive gentoo penguin colony just along the coast from Gypsy Cove, very near to where we were moored. The first time I headed off through the sand dunes following the mine fencing, I was fairly dubious about the directions I'd been given (or at least my dodgy memory of them). However, the fencing eventually led us to the beach and the first sighting of the birds. After some excited squealing, leaping through sand and scaling of a large dune, I was rewarded with the view seen below. I think Rich has ceased to be surprised by my passion for penguins now and no longer looks at me with the same bemused confusion. I went back to the penguins many times while we were in Stanley - including one dawn outing where I got to sit among the dunes, with the morning light spreading over the beach, while penguins darted around at high speed in the crystal clear water below.
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| I love how smug he looks about the fact he is stood in the suspect area! |
Damn I'm writing a lot today! Anyway, the only other thing to say is that we now have a huge number of new scientists and their support crew on board (32 to be precise) and thus the internet is extremely slow. I only managed to get this blog up as I was awake at 2am (to help out with science that didn't actually happen due to the fact that there were 55mph winds and the ship was being bounced around like a basketball) and I was therefore able to load the pictures when no one else was about stealing bandwidth. However, right now we are in the middle of the sea and there is very little to take pictures of anyway so updates will probably be few and far between until I get dropped on South Georgia in a couple of weeks.
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