Falkland Islands 2000

Peter Monk

Imagine a place where Land Rovers outnumber permanent inhabitatants. Impossible? Not in the Falkland Islands, a group of islands some 350 miles east of Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. Because of the decline in sheep farming, many of the old farms are now left with more Land Rovers than people.

This winter my family and I decided to visit the Falkland Islands, my old childhood home. After a grueling 20 hour flight to Punta Arenas, Chile, we caught the once weekly flight to Mount Pleasant Airport in the Falkland Islands (a large military base and said to be the largest single public works project of Margaret Thatcher’s administration). With only a pause to go through the usual customs and immigration we then flew by the Falkland Island Government Air Service (FIGAS) to my early childhood home of Pebble Island on the West Falklands. There we spent Christmas at the lodge “Pebble Hotel”. When I lived on Pebble there used to be some 25 farm workers and families. Now there are only five permanent adult inhabitatants and two children, yet I counted at least six functioning Rovers ranging from a rather sad Series III used to launch the lodge motor boat, through various farm 110s to the rather smart lodge Defender 110 Tdi CSW shown in the picture to the left.

While at Pebble we took a number of excursions to see penguins, seals and other wildlife in the lodge 110s. All the driving was off-road, but alas visitors can’t drive, so we were chauffeured by the lodge guide and a temporary assistant. One obvious difference between off-roading in the islands and here is the care taken to choose routes to avoid the worst hazards, and the care taken to avoid damage. Rocks are avoided if possible. In fact, Pebble is not a difficult place to drive being relatively dry and devoid of peat bogs (swamps) that cover much of the other islands.

While at Pebble we visited my favorite childhood playground, the rubbish dump, and found a very decayed SIII. I removed the VIN plate as a souvenir for Tom Bache!

After five days at Pebble we again took FIGAS, and flew to my favorite island, Carcass Island, still on the far west of the Falklands. Here the only permanent inhabitants are the owner and his wife, yet there are five working Land Rovers ranging from an ex-military Defender 110 to a series 1! Much to surprise, the day after we arrived, the owner asked if I would mind driving the ex-mil 110 to help transport some other tourists to see the Elephant Seal colony on the other side of the Island. My wife said I controlled my excitement well! Actually (apart from getting a little lost when I had to drive home on my own) Carcass is even easier than Pebble to drive, with hard terrain almost everywhere. However hill descent skills had to be used, and some gasps of surprise from my passengers suggested that they had never been down a hill off-road before!

The following day, the holiday improved even further when the kids were allowed to ride two horses, and in the afternoon we took a rather more challenging drive to see a penguin colony (where I was chased by a sea lion, but that is another story).

After Carcass we had to return to Port Stanley (the capital of the Falkland Islands), of course by another flight with FIGAS. Stanley is on the main East Falkland Island, and there is now a network of gravel roads linking most of the population centers (sometimes just one house on a farm – the majority of the civilian population lives in Stanley!). We had decided to make use of these roads to visit a number of sites on the East Falklands, and so we rented a handsome purple 110 Turbo Diesel station wagon from the Falkland Island Company.

Unfortunately this came with strict instructions not to off-road (and road tires to make sure I would not be tempted). Before traveling to the islands, I tried to find some way of off-roading there, but it seems impossible for tourists to do this. Of course the off-roading is technical, and the renters don’t want their vehicles to be damaged (or lost!) – but I would have paid for a day of guided, self drive, off-roading along the lines of what is offered in Colorado by guides like Bill Burke.

Nevertheless we did enjoy our magnificent 110 and resolved to buy one on returning to the USA (until we saw the $65,000 price tag that they fetch here!). Maybe I have an odd physiology, but I found it comfortable and pleasant to drive.

The day before we were to leave the islands, we hired a guide to take us to see the only large King Penguin colony in the islands. These are the biggest penguins in the islands and look quite like the Emperor penguins of the Antarctic continent. This rookery is about four hours from Stanley, with the first two hours being on gravel roads, and the second two off-road over extremely we peat bogs (swamps). Perhaps because of the heavy rain that day (and the rather heavy traffic to this popular destination) the track was in a very bad state, and at one point the 110 we were traveling in sank into the peat and high centered. A Mitsubishi Montero (Shogun is the local name I think) pulled us out. Honor was regained a few minutes later when the Mitsubishi suffered the same fate.

In town the majority of vehicles are some type of Land Rover (Mitsubishi seems to be the next most prevalent type). There are all types of Land Rover. Unfortunately I missed a photograph of the 6x6 fire tender at the airport, but I did manage to photograph the EOD (Explosives and Ordinance Disposal) 130 Defender. There are some 400,000 Argentine mines in the islands, left over from the 1982 conflict. The minefields are all carefully mapped and signposted so there is no danger, but the EOD is active in monitoring the minefields, tackling mines that appear on beaches or around the edges of the minefields and keeps an office in Stanley.

My unscientific opinion is that the 110 is the most common Land Rover around, but in town there are now many Discoveries and even some Freelanders. Although we saw few Series Land Rovers on the road, some like LULU are obviously still very much working vehicles.

It was with great sadness that we left the islands after a great vacation, with memories of huge meals, friends, wildlife and of course Land Rovers!

If you would like to see more photos of the islands, or links to Falkland Island web sites, please visit http://www.math.udel.edu/~monk (bottom of the page).