When we first told people we were moving to the Falkland Islands, in Richard’s case for 2 years and in the case of the rest of us for 1 year, the reactions were generally both positive and excited for us. A lot of people commented that it would be a huge adventure for us. Not many people knew much about the Falkland Islands. To be fair neither did we, save what we had gathered from watching the Island Parish, you tube videos from the Falklands Tourist Board and what we knew from history. There was a fair bit of information about how it could be difficult to get to places, especially in Camp, how often the flights could be delayed here, and about the need to drive a 4×4 vehicle. Given that the only direct way of getting here from the UK is via the RAF, all in all it seemed to be quite a big adventure.
This week however we turned on the television one evening to encounter a programme called “Our Wildest Dreams”. Only a few minutes of watching was enough to indicate that moving to the Falkland Islands for a short period is not hugely adventurous in the range of adventurous moves we could undertake. This particular episode was following a husband, wife and daughter who had sold everything they had in the UK to move to a new permanent life in the Amazon jungle, where the husband was originally from. They were moving to an extremely remote location, to a community of just 16 people and to an area where they would have to build their own house, there was no electricity and no plumbed water. Care needed to be taken when going to the river for the local wildlife.
Even if we restricted our attentions to other British overseas territories, the Falkland Islands hardly counts as the most remote or adventurous. True, it is almost 8,000 miles from the UK, but it is served by a direct twice weekly flight from the UK. It has a population of around 3,500 people. The Pitcarin Islands by way of contrast have a population of just 56. There are many thriving businesses and shops here, together with other amenities such as a leisure centre, library and soon to be small cinema actually in Stanley. You wouldn’t find that range of facilities if you moved to St Helena.
All in all, we may be a long way from home, but our adventuring remains of the version with stabilisers attached. The small niggles compared to life in the UK are in reality very small. It remains the case that we have all the basic amenities of life here and plenty that would be considered luxuries in many parts of the world – central heating, leisure centre, multiple shops, internet access etc. It’s a comfortable adventuring life when after driving out and encountering an unmade road or even a bit of off-roading, you can be back in a hot bath before supper and tucking up with a mug of tea and slice of home baked cake.
At this point, I probably ought to hastily reassure anyone from work back in the UK who is reading this that we have no yearning for a more adventurous experience. Attempting to live in the Amazon for example is clearly very hard work and in general all of these more remote places entail more sacrifices in daily life, especially our children’s daily life, than we consider is entirely fair to them given that we can also provide them with the amenities of life in the UK.
So in the meantime, I’ll enjoy my somewhat tamer adventuring. This week it saw me doing my first running in the Falkland Islands. There have been a few nice days previously, but in-between tiredness from the flight and indulging in a head cold, I never managed to drag myself out running then. When the sun came out and the wind seemed a little less though, I decided to take advantage of it. I had asked around and discovered that a standard route was to run to the first cattle grid along the road to Moody Brook. From our house, it’s down a steep hill to the sea, turn left and keep running. Then, turn around and run back. According to Strava the whole thing is just under 9km long.
After doing it once on Wednesday, I discovered running in the Falklands poses some challenges that I didn’t have in the UK. The major one is the wind. On the way to the cattle grid, except down the hill the wind is in your face the whole way. That’s a 20-30mph head wind by the way, if not stronger, so quite enough to make running feel difficult. On the way back you theoretically have the wind behind you, yet even after repeating the route on Friday, I find that as soon as I turn around the wind dies down and gusts erratically, at least right until I reach Sapper Hill again. At that point I run (more accurately stagger) up a steep incline for almost a kilometre again hampered by that head wind. On the plus side, according to Strava, I still managed to complete the run at a pace of 5 min 47 secs/km, which puts me within the hour for 10 km. I just have to decide now whether to go for the half marathon on 14 October. A half marathon is further than I’ve ever run before, but there’s something quite tempting about running the most southerly half marathon in the world. That seems like quite an adventure, stabilisers or not.
Five penguins and us 