Oi've been drivin' in moi carrrrrrr..

Or rather, borrowed one from the hire guys on camp, specifically a Mitsubishi L200 pick-up, which I rather liked. I had a day off last week at the end of the big exercise that was on (couldn't say owt about it last week but should be okay now it's over) so I figured it would be a good time to take a bimble into Stanley. A bimble is a trip out of camp. I didn't get a picture of the "Stanley - twinned with Whitby" sign but I will in the future.

So, driving on road in the Falklands...

The road varies between fairly decent surfaced road to dirt track with stonking great potholes in it, usually spaced just right to cause the vehicle to skip across the tops, loosing all grip and making the rear of the car snake out beautifully. If there aren't any potholes, chances are you're driving on a surface mainly made of small stones that will roll under the wheels, basically doing the job of ball-barrings in detaching your grip from the road. It's fun. Honest.
The speed limit on the Islands is 25 in the town (THE town, there's only one), 40 out of town and 30 on camp. That's camp as in Mount Pleasant, not Camp, which is a term used for anywhere out of Stanley, based, we think, around the word "campo" used for the farmland/hilly areas. Still with me?

As an aside, the clocks went forwards this weekend so Stanley and Mount Pleasant are now at GMT -3 hours but Camp is still at -4 hours as they don't use daylight savings in the same way as the camp do. So in leaving Stanley, you change timezones until you reach Mount Pleasant. This means we're 4 hours behind the UK until they put their clocks back, at which time we'll only be 3 hours behind. Clear, eh?

Anyway, back to the roads. As the car I was driving (which I would love for Christmas, if any rich nutters are reading) can be changed from 2 to 4 wheel drive on the move, I got quite good at slowing before the road surface changed, sliding into 4WD and avoiding the worst of the holes. It's only 35 miles to Stanley but it took me about 80 minutes to do it, which was fast enough, thank you very much! I think the record is unofficially 36 minutes but I'd like to live to see home again. Beside, fines for speeding range from £300 to £3000 with a night in jail so keeping below the limits isn't hard, even if the limiter is a bit faulty, as it was on my wagon.

About two thirds of the way to Stanley you start to see some interesting physical features on the hill side, the famous Falkland Rock Rivers, or Rock Runs as they're also known. I say famous, certainly famous amongst geologists. They are basically what appear to be rivers of rock that flow from the tops of the hills down to the sea. Theories about them generally focus on a glacial origin followed by extensive and extreme freeze-thaw weathering that results in very sharp rocks. I'll try to get some pictures next time. I was planning to stop but I ended up concentrating so much on not dying that I missed the chance.

*edited to add* I've managed to get some pictures of the Rock Runs, I'm afraid they were snatch shots from a helicopter so not as good as they could be but I think you can make out the way the rocks do seem to flow down the hillside. Looks like it could be an interesting topic to look into in more depth.

Around the same time you start time I started to see the signs warning of the major danger in driving off road without paying enough attention. Minefields.

Left over from the conflict in '82, these mainly centre around Stanley but are possible to find all over the Islands and are the only area that solid barriers line the road. You don't often see this sort of sign around in the UK.

There are stiff penalties for entering a minefield (aside from being blown up), as there are for making a mine explode. You might well be wondering why they don't get them all cleared, well, the important areas have been cleared but the locals have said that they'd rather the money and time went to clearing mines in other countries, rather than here, where everyone knows about them and can avoid them. That's what I've heard anyway, and if it's true then good on them!

In Stanley I did some touristy shopping (soooo many penguins!) and had a lovely lunch in the Malvinas Hotel. Do visit, try the squid rings! Then went for a pootle around the town, found a signpost


which reminded me of a bit in Pratchett's Jingo. The Ankh-Morpork soldiers had erected a signpost with distances to where they lived but as they all lived in one city all the arms pointed in one direction. At least this one had bits like "Oban, the long way round" - way before Ewan and Charlie!

Then a drive home and some time spent cleaning the wagon and I was done for the day.

I like these Islands. They're a long way from home but there's a good feel to them.

The moon's upside down!

I had a blog entry written out but now that I'm in the cyber cafe I thought I might as well just bang one out (jokes to the usual address).
Well, here I am.
Managed to get pretty much everything organised before I flew out, the flight was long and rather boring, although watching the sunrise over Africa was brilliant. We stopped off in Ascension Island and I got to leave the cage to meet the local Met guys, briefly, before we were herded back on for the next part of the trip.
Arrived after about 18 hours on the plane and got a quick tour of the base and the office.
Limited to what I can actually say about the base but it's pretty good, there's a long corridor from our living area to the main mess (about a mile long) and it's a bit chilly at times - glad I brought my down jacket.
I'm sat in the cyber cafe right now, something dad didn't have when he was here, and soon I think I'll nip to Oasis for a cup of tea and a cake. Life can be pretty civilised at 52 degrees south. It's cold mind, but then it is winter, we had a day of glorious sunshine but most of the time has been dull and drizzley. I'm expecting snow this weekend.
Erm what else, oh we've got a 33m heated swimming pool, a climbing wall, a great gym (had my induction after work this morning - 3 minutes of the timetable being read and the pti asking "everyone seen the rules before? Right see me if you need anything else.") a cheap bar (whisky costs about a third of a the price of a chocolate bar :D ) a bowling alley (the pins are on cable - it's hilarious) that I got invited to on the first evening - great but I was dead on my feet by the end, library, couple of shops, few places for tea and coffee, a cinema that shows some fairly recent shows, and all this is just inside the mess complex.
I've had the landrover training and been hooning about in the works van as much as I can and I've come to realise that I like defenders! Hoping to get off the base at some point this week but I'm working this weekend when the rest of them are going off to Stanley, maybe next time. There's often chances to go on flights which I'll grab when I can but not just yet.
Work wise, it's harder than back home and different with more briefings and different conditions. Different products too. I was worried that I couldn't do it for a bit but I think that was just the newness of the situation. I need to speed up production but that'll come. Work also, like most sections down here, has a cat. He can be a bit annoying when he's begging for food but it's nice to be able to take a couple of seconds pause and say hello to him. I'll stick up some photos of Krusty, and other things, when I can.
It's the little thing that keep throwing me, I went outside and thought "Hang on! The cloud's in the wrong part of the sky and the wind's going the wrong way! My forecast is rubbish!" Then I realised I'm in the south and the sun is in the north. I'd automatically lined myself up and got it epically wrong. I also don't recognise ANY of the stars down here yet. Okay, apart from the Sun, but we don't see our local star much. I think I've seen the southern cross but need to check on that.
In general, I think I'm going to like it down here, but give me a week of work in evil weather on my own and then ask me...