Monday, March 14, 2005

Slowly, slowly

I have finally put all my pictures in order and I'm actually showing them to people. I really don't like obligating people to look at my vacation photos, but I think it was such an unusual trip that people are genuinely interested (or maybe I'm delusional). In any event - here are a few more:



A view of some of the homes in Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands. It was a lovely warm day when we were there, but it did shower on us while we were walking about town. We managed to snag some Falkland's roving at the woolen shop and even found some handspun to take home.



These were my first icebergs (on the right). Actually, it's one big iceberg (in the middle) - you can't see in the picture, but they're connected below the water. The land masses are called Shag Rock. There's a huge colony of Shags that live and breed here. I couldn't help giggling everytime they said "Shag Rock" over the intercom. Yes, I'm the mother of a 13-year-old who loves Austin Powers.



These are fur seals. Yes, they look cute and cuddly. Yes, clubbing them over the head for their pelts is wrong. Make no mistake, these are the nastiest, smelliest creatures on the planet. We had a huge lecture about these animals before our landing on this beach. We were going to see a very large King Penguin rookery, but first we had to land about a mile away and hike over the beach - through the fur seals to get there.

The naturalist told us "It's not the fur seal in front of you to watch out for...it's the one behind you. Don't back up when they charge you." As a result, I was terrified. These things will snap at you for even looking at them cross eyed. Plus, they'll chase you. Was wading through all that worth it?



200,000 breading pairs...you bet it was worth it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't know if you've heard about a cold snap in Europe over the last few weeks. Apparently some hoaxer in Ireland released a news bulletin about an iceberg appearing off the north west coast, using one of your pictures.

http://twitpic.com/xiyxo
http://www.google.com/search?q=iceberg+arran+more