Falkland Islands (where oh where have the penguins gone??)

“Falkland Islands? Why would you want to go there?!” my curious friends asked. “Friendship and penguins” was my constant reply. Luckily my friend was still there when I arrived as the penguins certainly weren’t!

Due to early cold weather most of the penguins, sea lions and the rest of the interesting wildlife had up and left the week before I arrived. Any remaining penguins were inconveniently living at the end of water logged roads that had been closed. So much for seeing the funny fellows up close!

Instead I spend my week watching another kind of wildlife; the interesting locals of Port Stanley. They were a friendly bunch and were happy to chat while I was kept the economy ticking over with frequent stops for “smoko”.

The land around Port Stanley was bleak and untamed; it reminded me of the Scottish Highlights. I took a few windy walks in between hail and rain storms, happily squishing around in the mud.

I wandered down to where the penguins usually lived and could be heard calling “here pengie”, “here pengie, pengie, pengie”. I was forever hopeful that one would just pop its head up. It was not to be so I made do with seeing the hundreds of penguins captured by my friend’s photos.

It took a day to fly between the Falklands and Chile (Santiago) with a stop in Punta Arenas. The flight provided some glimpses of the fantastic scenery that Chile has to offer with huge jagged snow covered peaks battling for space with dirty blue glaciers.