Monday, February 10, 2020

2020 Grand South America & Antarctica Voyage, Falkland Islands, Part 1 of 2


After 4 days exploring Antarctica, we arrived in the Falkland Islands. Cathy and I got the first tender to Stanley, the capital. This place is all about penguins and this was the focus of our tour today. Our friend John and Angeli from Guest Services joined us for the day. Imagine a place that is so far off the beaten track you have miles of stunning landscape, beaches and magnificent bird life all to yourself. This is the Falkland Islands, a special place and one of the last great wilderness destinations where your trip becomes an adventure. Four-wheel drives were our mode of transport taking us to Volunteer Point an area abundant with over 4000 penguins. The route was a mixture of gravel road and grass track terrain via 4x4 vehicle. On this off road experience, we passed the Battle Mountains of the Falklands War of 1982, the unique Rivers of Stone (large boulder formations) and several sheep farms. After a 2.5 hour drive we arrived at Volunteer Point. We saw three types of penguins; largest penguin being the King….with bright orange markings, the Gentoo and the Magellanic. The penguins are unafraid of humans and let us get very close to them. We spent an hour and a half mingling with the penguins...On our return to Stanley, we were given a tour of the town.  We had wonderful time thanks to Patrick Watts Tours and our driver/guide Toni Pettersson.  It was an amazing trip and it could not have been a better day!




















































































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