Woo-hoo! You finally get to see some penguins!
We had a wonderful day on East Falkland Island! It was supposed to be cold (about 50 degrees Fahrenheit) and cloudy so we packed warmly. You know, lots of layers, warm coats... We ended up just carrying them. It turned out to be a very warm sunny day, very rare weather for Stanley. We spent the day feeling very blessed. And here are pictures documenting our adventure!
We disembarked the boat and took one of the tenders to the port. Here we all are, our family along with my mom and the Rollins clan, on the 20 minute tender ride. Except for Jonah. I think I see his head. Bummer. I thought everyone was pretty visible in this pic!
From the port at Stanley, we took a shuttle to Gypsy Cove, a Magellanic penguin colony on the island. We stayed there for a couple hours, walking along the trail, observing the penguins, and exploring. It was so beautiful. It reminded us of being on Mount Rainier, only with the ocean right there.
We loved watching the penguins play and splash and waddle! I love the penguin down near the lower right hand corner, flapping his wings.
The Magellanic penguins, unlike penguins you would see in Antarctica (which live in rookeries on the rock or on the bare ice), make their homes in little burrows all over in the bushy areas.
If you walk quietly, you can sometimes be lucky enough to be in arms reach of a penguin coming out of its burrow, like we were of this penguin below.
Our little rock climbers! Paige and Jonah got to climb down to the water and then up again. They loved the freedom to explore here.
And I think they are a little proud of themselves too.
I didn't really want to leave this place. It was so peaceful and you can see from the pictures how beautiful it was. 
But, we were hungry! Of course. And Lara Bars weren't going to cut it for long. So, we left and enjoyed some fish n' chips in town and then meandered for a bit. We found a big grassy area for the kids to run play and also a penguin store that the kids loved. A perfect kind of day.
6 comments:
Wow, that group shot is pretty good! Did Mike take that? I guess that's obvious, but I can't remember. Maybe some nice lady did...Yeah, I see bit of Jonah's head too...no doubt he was too busy being his animal of the moment! :)
Oh, it was beautiful there! So warm! I still think it's funny that we were all prepared for a chilly, overcast day and it ended up gloriously sunny! Too many jackets!
What a great day! I love how you are documeting day by day, or pretty much, for us. It makes me feel like I am there. Well, at least I wish I was there! How were the fish n chips? Taste like home?
I have really enjoyed the blog. The kids have gotten so big, the vacation did look like alot of fun,
I am glad you two are enjoying the blog! It is so nice to share our fun and adventures with everyone and keep in touch. And it is working out for me to write about our trip in stages. I would be overwelmed otherwise.
Nope, the fish n' chips did not taste like home. They tasted alright. But to me, they lacked a little flavor. It was a mild flavored fish with a very mild flavored coating. They were actually New Zealand style fish n' chips, if you've ever had those... Jonah especially enjoyed his lunch. He ate almost as much as we did. We had 3 pieces of fish each. Jonah ate 2 1/2. Paige ate only 1/2. She had her share of chips though :)
The Falkland Island were really nothing special, at least the little bit we saw. Considering that 90% of the 2500 total people in the country live in Stanley, I am guessing I would actually enjoy more the rest of the country better. It would be very natural and free of people. But we really came her to see the Penguins, and that was totally worth it. I can’t tell you enough how cool it was to see so many of them and not in a zoo or aquarium. Just living in the wild. It was great, I could have watched them for hours…actually, I guess that’s exactly what we did.
Okay, Julie wasn’t happy with my last comment on Falkland Islands. She was right, I wasn’t that positive on them. From what we saw of the Falkland Islands they were really beautiful. It was a really nice day there, and everything was simple and clean, and just peaceful (minus all the reminders of the 1980’s war with Argentina…). I guess when comparing Falklands to Antarctica, is where I came up with the they “were really nothing special” line. Anyway, Falklands were great, but we still had sooo many even better places to see.
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