Hi Everyone,
Apologies for all the slow and belated blog posts recently. The last few days on the ship were very hectic and then once we left the ship Evelyn and I have been very busy both enjoying our holiday in the Falklands and also making sure that everything is booked and sorted for the next phase of our journey.
We started our day by quickly running some errands in the centre of town, posting some postcards (both ours and some left behind for us to post), visiting the local centre for geology (I’ll be honest, that was mostly for my benefit, a very quick visit), and picking up some souvenirs and bits and pieces people had requested from a local art gallery/shop. After this we began the walk that would take up most of our day.
We have been so lucky with the weather and it continues to amaze. We had heard terrible things about the Falklands weather but it has been amazing, throughout the day we had beautiful sunshine, temperatures in excess of 20C and a nice breeze so it wasn’t too hot for walking (mostly). Our walk today took us from the Eastern edge of Stanley where we are staying, through Stanley to the edge of the bay, and from there up into the hill. We walked around Mount Tumbledown, Mount Harriet, Goat Ridge, Two Sisters and Mount Longdon. Overall, we reckon the route was about 32km and ~1000m in height gained (very roughly, pokemon go thinks it was 39km….). It was quite an intense walk, especially given the total lack of paths and the tussocky/boggy landscape. We didn’t see another hiker in the entire day, most people seem to get around on 4x4s or motorbikes, so the paths are usually quite faint if they exist at all. We did benefit from the recent dry and warm spell which meant that even when we strayed into large boggy parts it was very dry and so fine underfoot.
Many of the hills also have clear remnants from the 1982 war. Mount Tumbledown has remains of Argentinian field kitchens, used to feed the soldiers defending the hills from the British assault; Mount Longdon has both field kitchens and some large guns; and all of the hills had some crosses, cairns and memorials of varying sizes to remember the British soldiers who gave their lives fighting in the hills. It was very powerful and fascinating to see such visceral examples of the history of the landscape.
By the end of the walk, we were both pretty tired but managed to drag ourselves back to the lodge (grabbing ice cream and supplies en route) before settling down for a delicious dinner of pot noodle. Looking forward to a coastal stroll tomorrow!
02/02/23
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