Falkland Islands and Chile - November 2013

In November, 2013, I traveled to Chile and the Falkland Islands with the tour group company Adventure Life. Though my time on the ground in Chile focused just on Punta Arenas and environs, my flight from Santiago traveled down the southern half of the country, and blessed with good weather and a window seat, I was able to see much of this countryside from the air. Overall, this was an outstanding trip. The Falkland Islands had a marked barren, windswept, lonely beauty characteristic of their sub-Antarctic location. I stayed in the islands one week, as one normally must, since the flights from Punta Arenas run just once a week, on Saturdays. As the photos show, the wildlife viewing opportunities were amazing. The hiking opportunities were also amazingly good - as long as one could catch a break from the frequent cold and high winds, prevalent even during the early austral summer.I saw a great deal of the islands, not only on the road, but also through the many internal FIGAS (Falkland Island Government Air Service) flights that were part of my itinerary. These flights, because of the particular schedules of picking up passengers and dropping them off, took me to brief visits to several isolated islands that weren't specifically part of my tour. Also, of course, I saw large chunks of both West Falkland and East Falkland, which are the main areas.

Urban sprawl of Santiago, Chile, with the Andes in the background.                               

Flying over the Andes in southern Chile!

Beautiful green countryside of southern Chile near Puerto Montt, with the Andes in the background. Rainfall is quite a bit higher in this region than in northern Chile.

View of Punta Areans, Chile, from an overlook on the west side of town. The Strait of Magellan is in the background. The city is marked by the many colorful roofs on the houses, which is said to take origin from the many paints that sailors had aboard their ships.

Road distance sign (in kilometers) for Chilean Patagonia.

This is a replica, supposedly built exactly, of one of the ships used in Ferdinand Magellan's famous expedition to the region. This is located in an outdoor museum just outside Punta Arenas. Magellan's name is all over town; in fact this region of Chile is named the Magallenes Region. 

Myself beside the Strait of Magellan which runs beside Punta Arenas.

Cathedral in Punta Arenas

Picture of Darwin Settlement on East Falkland, where I stayed for a couple of days. As with many other settlements in the Falkland Islands, Gorse vegetation is prevalent; this was planted years ago in these settlements for appearance, a windbreak, and as borders for sheep grazing. The plants were blooming with their characteristic spring yellow when I was there. The lodge where I stayed is a large green-roofed building at the bottom of this hill. Mt. Osborne, the highest peak in the Falklands, is in the background. 

Myself at the Argentine Cemetery (from the 1982 Falklands War), which is located near Darwin. 
.

The Bodie Creek Suspension Bridge, which is said to be the most southerly such bridge in the world; this is located in a flat southern part of East Falkland called Lafonia. 

Expansive treeless grassy plain of East Falkland called Lafonia, where seemingly endless numbers of sheep can be found; I did some hikes in this area. This is really "Big Sky Country".  
 

Goose Green, a settlement in East Falkland, which contains a sheep shearing station that was once regarded as the largest in the world.



This is one of the FIGAS (Falkland Islands Government Air Service) planes that transported me to various destinations around the islands during my stay. The passenger list and flight itinerary are finalized the evening before, based on demand, and are announced islands-wide on the radio. So as one of my hosts remarked, every time you are on one of these flights, you become nationally famous! 

View of Sea Lion Island from the FIGAS plane, looking north.

Weddell Island! This was one of many remote spots the FIGAS plans brought me to as part of their demand-driven flight itineraries. Many residents of these remote places, such as a gentleman I met here who resides on Weddell Island, get needed supplies from these FIGAS flights. The building I am standing in front of is what passes for an "airport terminal" in these rural Falklands airstrips. Concourse B, anyone? 

Large colony of king cormorant birds on a beautiful cliffside setting on the southern edge of Sea Lion Island. The wildlife and scenery of this island was simply stunning. 

Gentoo penguin on Sea Lion Island, checking on her egg. I was there during penguin breeding season. 

Myself standing near the signpost for two settlements on West Falkland that I visited, Roy Cove and Hill Cove. 

This is Roy Cove, a remote settlement on a beautiful setting on the western coast of West Falkland. I did some hiking in this area. Sheep and gorse plants were everywhere. 

This is a picture of the lodge on Sea Lion Island where I stayed for two days. The airstrip for the island is right next to the lodge settlement complex. Colonies of Gentoo penguins are seen in the foreground, a short walk from the lodge.

 Nesting Rockhopper penguin on Sea Lion Island, with the king cormorant birds the background. 

View of Fox Bay settlement from the FIGAS plane, as it was preparing to land at the airstrip. 

Sheep were seemingly everywhere in the Falkland Islands.

 Rugged treeless scenery of West Falkland as seen from the FIGAS plane. 

Christ Church Cathedral in Stanley, which is the largest town in the Falkland Islands (about 2,000 inhabitants). The church dates from the late 19th century. 

Myself sitting under the Whalebone Arch in Stanley, which is located right next to Christ Church Cathedral, on a beautiful warm sunny day with (rare for the Falklands) light winds!

No man's land! This is a marked and fenced-off minefield left over from the 1982 Falklands War between Great Britain and Argentina. Note the red warning signs. This minefield was near Port Howard, but I saw similar ones outside of Goose Green and Stanley.

Colorful roofs of Stanley houses. The town sits on a hill overlooking the harbor. 

Southern Sea Lion that I saw on a beach at (of all places) Sea Lion Island.

Wreckage of plane from the 1982 war, visible on West Falkland about 10 miles outside of Port Howard. 

This rocky monument marks the highest point on Sea Lion Island (Bull Hill, approximately 150ft elevation).

 

 

 

Australia by bus - June/ July 1981

In June and July 1981, at the age of sixteen, I traveled to Australia with my family-of-origin (parents, siblings) for a month-long trip there. On the way there we also saw some of Hawaii and the western U.S. To get around Australia, we bought bus passes covering the network then run by a company called Ansett Pioneer. We flew into Townsville, Queensland from Hawaii and began and ended the trip in Townsville. The resulting trip was extensive and covered approximately 11,000 bus miles though every one of Australia's mainland states, and every one of those states' capital cities. This gave me an extensive look at this huge and beautiful country with so much unique scenery and wildlife. Some of the highlights of the trip included Ayers Rock and the Olgas (in the center of the country); numerous koala bear and wildlife parks; Magnetic Island off the coast of Queensland; the Great Barrier Reef; the Nullarbor Plain; the Gold Coast; and the government buildings in Canberra. We also got to see the famed Beer Can Regatta in Darwin. The geographer in me noted at the time that at the farthest point in the trip- Fremantle, Western Australia - we were very close to the "antipodal" point (i.e. the polar opposite point on the globe) to where I was living at the time on the U.S. East Coast.

None of this should not be taken to mean that this trip was easy, or merely some nice rest and relaxation. Some of the bus rides were up to 36 hours long, meaning that we had to sleep aboard the buses. There was also a lot of walking and busy sightseeing during the visits to the cities. Also - this being 1981 - smoking was allowed aboard the buses, a great inconvenience for someone like me who has always been a nonsmoker. About a third of Australian adults were smokers at the time of my trip, and many of them seemed to find their way onto my bus rides. The company made some attempts to segregate smokers and nonsmokers but this didn't really work. How unpleasant this was really depended on how many people were on the bus rides, and who you got. Sometimes the bus drivers themselves were smokers. Fortunately, in most countries, this type of transport is all non-smoking now, so this problem hopefully will not recur in any of my present or future travels.

Map of bus itinerary around Australia, which took 29 days and about 11,000 miles. This was taken from a trip log that I kept daily during the actual trip. This map is pretty orderly, but some of my other entries are messy, as I would often try to write them while aboard the bus and being jostled about during the ride. I had seen plenty of gum trees, desert, and kangaroos by the time all this was over.

One of many koala bears we met on this trip; this one was at a park in Adelaide, South Australia.

Flinders Street Station, a landmark of Melbourne, Victoria.

Dramatic coastal cliffs near South Australia - Western Australia border.

Coastal road at sunset along the Indian Ocean north of Perth, Western Australia.

Downtown Townsville, Queensland. This was our Australian starting and ending point for the trip.

Up-close view of the Olgas, a rock formation in the Northern Territory near Ayers Rock.











Ayers Rock, Northern Territory, viewed from the east. Along with Sydney Opera House and the Great Barrier Reef, this has to be one of Australia's most well-known tourist attractions.

Downtown Perth.

One of the buses that I rode during the journey. This was at a rest stop in Western Australia.

The Three Sisters, a rock formation located in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney.

View of Sydney Harbour from the namesake Harbour Bridge, which has a pedestrian walkway that we took. The Opera House is easily seen at right.

Close-up view of Sydney Opera House.

This is a jellyfish that washed onshore while we were at Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast (Queensland).

View from an underwater observatory at Green Island, Queensland (just offshore from Cairns). The foreground shows a large golden-colored coral formation.








Wild, bumpy catamaran ride aboard the "Big Cat", going from Cairns to Green Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

Mileage sign in Townsville.

This is the Qantas 747SP jet that took me from Townsville to Honolulu. Here the jet is parked at Honolulu's airport, with the extinct Diamond Head volcano visible in the far distance.