King penguins

The Falklands have the largest king penguin colony outside the Antarctic (about 300 pairs). Its seems surprising more don't live here as while the Antarctic birds get stranded on the ice over winter as the sea freezes, these birds live in relatively balmy conditions!









This is a relatively old chick



And this is a moulting adult, who has finished breeding and is now replacing his feathers ready for the winter

Stanley, The Falklands

So I have arrived safely in Stanley, the capital of the Falklands. It is like being in a remote scottish fishing village. Everyone sounds British, there are red post boxes, red phone boxes and even a red double decker bus! So as we eat our Jordens country crisp while watching breakfast news it is hard to believe we are so far away from home!

This is my house for the next week and a half

and the view from our kitchen window

and our back garden

and this is the plane which I have to take next week (possibly under sedation!)



Have some penguin related trips planned this week and we are making the most of life in 'town' before we move to our tent on the beach! Will post more photos soon

Glacial adventures

Patagonia appears to be the land of glaciers. First stop was El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina. Nicely you can take a boat right up to the glacier and the hiking is limited to about 10 minutes!



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After this leisurely glacial experience I headed to Torres del Paine in Chile. Here we trekked for 50 miles over 5 days around glaciers, lakes and mountains. Apparently it rarely rains in this part of the world, but obviously the expection was made for my visit! Having arrived in the local town in late afternoon, everyone else seemed to be leaving for the park the next morning. I decided to put my neuroses aside and 'wing it'. Apparently I am neurotic for a reason. Arriving at camp on the first night I realised I had left all my nice food in the fridge and was faced with a dinner of rice. Just rice. And to make things more difficult I also managed to forget that stoves require a little help to ignite and was forced to befriend people with fire. Earlier in the day, as a space saving mechanism, I had decided that only one piece of cutlery was necessary and as I owned a fork I decided that this was the piece it would take. I then forgot said fork. So as difficult as eating rice would be with just my hand, the prospect of eating porridge with my paws in the morning was too much - I had to trade some of the emergency chocolate.

The view for the first 3 and half days was slightly bleak...



with some gentle rolling hills and occasional glimpse of mountain tops (all cases photographed - see below!)...



But on the fourth day, when we had been trekking for about 7 hours we reached the camp site at the base of the towers (the torres). And literally just as we arrived the clouds parted and blue sky appeared from nowhere! We, and everyone else in a 2 mile radius, made a made dash up the last scramble to the the base of the towers and we were the only people in 6 or 7 days to get a glimpse of the peaks!




and just to prove I really made it....

Now back safely in my cosy hostel I'm off to the Falklands tomorrow until mid february. We will be camping on an offshore island, without running water, electricity or bacon. If anyone knows any passing planes, food drops should be aimed to Pebble Island, West Falkland!