Port Stanley

Thursday 20^th – anchored in Port Stanley.  We have chosen to go on the ‘Falkland Nature Walk’ in the morning, followed by lunch on the ship and then the shuttle bus into the centre of the most southerly capital in the world.  There will be an opportunity for penguin paraphernalia shopping surely…

The walk took us through a fairly flat peaty scrubland and around to a silver-sanded beach at Gypsy Cove…

Our guide, Brian, pointed out the various flora – including the splendidly named ‘diddle dee’.  It looks like a low growing rock plant with small red berries – we managed to buy a small pot of ‘diddle dee jam’ in the town.

Birds were not quite so plentiful but we did see:

Magellanic penguins  - this is the penguin that lives in burrows – sometimes you can see their heads just poking out of the entrance…

Black-throated finch
Crested duck
Flightless steamer duck
Black crowned night heron
Rock cormorant
Long tailed meadow lark – rather splendid orangey red on the breast…

Correndera  pipit
Upland goose
Turkey vulture
Red-backed hawk
Kelp gull
Dark-faced ground tyrant
Austral thrush

plus we saw a pair of dolphins swimming very near to shore

We only had a brief time in Stanley but did venture along Thatcher Avenue towards the Governor’s house.  There are plenty of Union flags on show and the GB pound is very welcome.  The metal roofs of the houses are painted in bold colours; there are traditional red telephone boxes and post-boxes and we saw one with a resident lawn mower – a sheep!

We are now setting off on a long leg of the journey to South Georgia – two days at sea.  And the sea seems to be developing some bumps – perhaps I should not have praised the lovely weather earlier in the week.  It could well be time for more preventative medication…