Shaped by the Winds: The Falkland Islands

A Kingdom
for Penguins

Heading for Nature's Paradise
on Board a Military Airplane

Two Tornado interceptors are clinging to the wings of the Royal Air Force Boeing 747 during its descent to the military airport of Mount Pleasant. Among the passengers on board the jet are: Princess Anne and Mirko Fallak.

The Falkland Islands are tossed into the South Pacific Ocean about 400 miles east of Tierra del Fuego. In the Falkland War of 1982, the United Kingdom defended the islands against Argentina. Although peace has been restored a quarter-century ago, it remains unusual today for tourists to come to this neck of the woods. The only flight connection serving the islands from Europe is the RAF's "South Atlantic Airbridge."

While Her Royal Highness is continuing en route to Antarctica, Mirko Fallak shoulders his backpack for several weeks of exploring the sparse and stormy back country of the Falklands. Only a few hundred settlers dwell on this land stretching out over an area about twenty times the size of Olpe County.



Outdoor camping poses quite a challenge in this treeless, storm-ridden landscape and a climate with temperatures barely exceeding the lower 50s even in mid-summer. The ambitious wanderer, however, is more than compensated by unique encounters with penguins, albatrosses, elephant seals and the remarkably hospitable Falkland Islanders.

Among Mirko's most exciting experiences was his excursion to one of the smaller islands just off the West Falkland coast. Saunders Island is owned and inhabited by a family of farmers, who allowed Mirko to explore the remotest parts of their island. Sitting on top of the cliffs and looking over the shoulders of an albatross provides a truly out-of-this-world experience. These giant birds with their ten-foot wingspan are as unbashful as the Rockhopper penguins, whose constant quarreling can be witnessed from the closest distance. The entire ground seems interspersed with little caves from which Magellan penguins curiously poke their heads. The Striated Caracara, one of the world's rarest birds of prey, exhibits an unexpected presumptuousness while examining such things as a dropped backpack.

The often ferocious sub-Antarctic weather creates spectacular, ever-changing scenery: Within just a few hours, a spooky cloak of fog may lift to reveal brilliant sunshine, followed by a brutal thunderstorm.



When Mirko Fallak returned to the lonely farmhouse after a week, the farmer agreed to drop him off at the opposite stretch of coast, from where it was supposed to be "only" twenty miles cross-country to the nearest farm. When he arrived there, the backpacker was once again welcomed like a member of the family.

If you think that the Falkland Islanders have been living under a rock, you will be surprised to learn that the curious hosts spent the rest of the evening surfing the GreenArt website!