Cruise ships...

On a nice sunny day this is the view of the hospital, the building with the light blue roof. It is a fairly modern building after the last one was destroyed by a very suspicious fire in the 1990's.

The field in front of the picture is the football pitch, used by both the community and the school, there are also cricket nets there, which I attend from time to time.





Apart from fishing the biggest source of income is tourism. Cruise ships are a regular sight, both in Stanley Harbour like in this photo or in the deeper water in the bay just outside the harbour. The QE2 is an annual visitor, as will be the even larger Queen Elizabeth next season. Once the passengers are ashore they either wonder the streets of Stanley or go on day excursions to battlefield sights or to see wildlife.

We tend to get the very large ships on their round the world trips or smaller vessels on their way down to South Georgia and beyond.

The population doubles in size in a very short space of time. Sometimes the tourists are surprised that the locals speak such very good English and that they have computers and electricity down here. There are plenty of gift shops for the tourists to visit, but there is a bit more that could be done, the jetty where they land and the harbour side itself is not the most appealing and does not give the best first impression of Stanley.


The view along the race course with Mount Longdon, Tumbledown & Two Sisters in the background. Typical Falkland countryside, a mixture of Dartmoor terrain with the peat bogs of Ireland or Scotland. Upto the 1980's peat was a major source of fuel, and still is in the countryside outside Stanley.

Work is going fairly well. There is enough to keep me occupied. I have given myself my own pet project to do in my spare time. The Christmas / New Holiday was probably a bit too long. We only have one TV channel to watch and no DVD player now. It is good experience to come here for a few months, and I would come here again given the choice. I am not sure I would want to spend all year out here, not unless I got hold of cable TV and had internet access.