Yayyyyyy!!! Helicopter trip to penguin land!!!!
Somehow both James and I managed to come away with sunburn, even though it was pretty much overcast all day long! I have wanted to go to Volunteer Point since I got to The Falklands, but wanted to save it for a day off with James. But heli trips sometimes get cancelled, so it was a bit of a risk leaving it so late into my tour. But it all worked out OK, and we were dropped at heli HQ at 9am ready to watch the safty brief.
One the wall was a map of Volunteer Point. When I went to Sealion island (wow, three months ago almost...!) It is quite a large island, so you can easily fill the 4 hours you have there. But Volunteer Point is literally just one beach. But this place was litterally just one beach, and you could walk maybe half a mile each way from the landind site. We were the first to arrive at the heli place, and while we were waiting we were looking at the tourist information guide for Volunteer Point on the wall. It showed where to walk to see the penguins, and on the map there was a box over the beach saying "WARNING: Beach prone to large surf." With an hour before take off, James went to see the loadies to see if he could take his board on the helicopter. Apparently it was fine, and they even gave him a lift back to the accommodation block to collect it.
The flight was only twenty minutes, and one little girl was sick the whole way there. Poor thing.
We were dropped off, and informed we had 5 hours before we would get picked up again. Wish I'd brought a book... It took about 10 minutes or less to get to the beach, which was again another pretty white sandy beach. Straight away we saw a group of King Penguins. They are so pretty. Well, I'll let the photos do the talking. We then walked about twenty minutes up to where their colony is, and saw the last of the babies. Most of them are all grown up now and look like adults.
After we'd done that we went to the far side of the beach, and found some shelter from the wind. The waves looked pretty pathetic, 1ft at best. But as he'd gone to the trouble of bringing the board, James thought it was worth a go and managed to catch a few waves.
Sorry a lot of the pictures are the same - I took loads and struggled to get only 10!!!
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| Pretty King Penguins on the beach at Volunteer Point |
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| Hard to miss the King Penguin colony...! |
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| Aww |
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| The last of the babies, all grown up! |
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| They are smaller than they look in the photos!!! |
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| Penguin fight! |
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| Retaliation |
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| James with the penguins |
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| Random Magellanic amongst the kings |
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| Managed to get a bit of surfing done! |
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| Baby Magellanic coming out of his home |
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