The Falklands

Hasn’t this year flown by? So much has happened in this last six months… My personal work takes a big back seat when it comes to cataloging and blogging sometimes. So I must go back to the very start of the year when I was possibly the furthest I’ll ever be from home and the closest I’ll ever get to Antartica.

Four long flights found me right at the bottom of Argentina, in the extremely isolated, Falkland Islands (ffffreezing my *behind off). It was another 1.5 hour long helicopter ride to the island (New Island) I would call home for two weeks… with penguins, albatross and a resident seal right at my doorstep.

The Falklands landscape is like no other I have ever seen. Harsh. Rocky. Sparse and windswept. Much like a moonscape I would imagine. On New Island there was only one tree, 6 people and 4 houses… no shops, no TV, and only slow, expensive internet.

Bitterly cold in the middle of the summer, I can’t even fathom how cold these places get in the midst of winter. As it was a ‘warmer’ season, however, all the animals were just beginning to raise their young… Tiny, fluffy bundles squeaked from underneath their mothers’ feathered bellies and bunkered down beneath them for shelter from the relentless winds.

Many a time I felt like I was standing in a David Attenborough film, as quite often, I was only an arm’s length from these beautiful creatures…

Here are a few pictures from my helicopter journey and first few days on tiny New Island.