Whale Point - 30 January 2021 - No 22

Eleven of us, in three Land Rover cars, a Defender (with a driver and a passenger), an old style Freelander (with a driver and four passengers), and my Evoque (with me and three passengers) had something of an adventure.  We drove to Whale Point from Stanley.   Now unless you know the Falkland Islands well you won't appreciate that the last ten miles or so of the journey are entirely off road.    When I say 'off road' I really mean off road.  In some places there was evidence of a track, in other places there was no evidence that any vehicle had passed this way before.

Whale Point appears to have got its name from the ancient whale bones that can be found some distance from the shore.   I've no idea how they got there.

The beach behind the whale bones is a beautiful white sand bay.  There are ducks, geese, petrel's, gulls and gentoo penguins.  There is a penguin colony in the dunes behind the beach.

The penguins are always entertaining to watch.  Whether it is their march too and from the sea, chasing each other or, more importantly, alarming when gulls come too near there is always something to see.  It is always interesting watching them eye-up the nearby humans too.  Evidently we don't cause them much stress at all.

Fledgling Gentoo has already learnt to keep an eye-out for gulls

Young chasing its parent for food.

Having visited the penguins we drove around some salt flats to Wreck Point where a late Victorian sailing vessel had foundered on a narrow (and self evidently shallow) stony spit.  Casually lying on on these stones were a group of seals.  The first time I looked at them I saw three.  The next time I looked, and looked properly I saw six - and the other three weren't that far away!  They were surprisingly well camouflaged.  The seals were largely disinterested in us.

How many sealions can you see?

We drove on a little further - where I took this photo - it could almost have been a Land Rover through the ages advert.

Just along the coast we found a group of elephant seals resting.  Again they were very much disinterested in us - most didn't even look at us!

I'm happy to say that we all got back without any serious incident.  All three land rovers proved themselves very capable off road vehicles.  That said I'm pleased mine is the Evoque!