{"id":2731,"date":"2014-04-07T10:11:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T15:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2014-04-07T14:38:11","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T19:38:11","slug":"windswept-landscapes-the-falklands-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2731","title":{"rendered":"Windswept Landscapes -The Falklands, I"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a visual feast\u00a0of \u00a0landscapes are\u00a0The Falkland Islands<\/span><\/a>, from where I have just returned to Montevideo after a wonderful week.<\/p>\n

\"Landscapes<\/a><\/p>\n

The changeability of the weather\u00a0during my week\u00a0there meant there was no going back for another shot when the weather improved,\u00a0so\u00a0I\u00a0have some less than perfect photos, some taken flying through rain, or trying to keep\u00a0myself and the camera\u00a0still in the strongly gusting\u00a0winds.\u00a0 Travel around the islands is by either\u00a04WD or the Falkland Island Government Air Services small plane, FIGAS, around the outer island settlements.\u00a0 Service\u00a0to any place depends on who books to go where on a particular day, but I was told a plane turns up at least every week or so, and in the tourist season probably daily.\u00a0\u00a0 Mail comes whenever the plane does, just like in our own Australian Outback.\u00a0\u00a0There are very few roads\u00a0out past Stanley\u00a0so to get somewhere you just set out and go in whatever direction you want\u00a0– so\u00a0there are track lines all over the place\u00a0– upper left photo<\/span><\/em><\/span>, and more on tracks<\/span>\u00a0in a future post.\u00a0 One of my flights took place on a very calm but overcast morning – the upper right view<\/span><\/span> <\/em><\/span>from my seat at the rear of the 10-seater plane shows a sea smooth as a sheet of glass.\u00a0 Lower left<\/span> <\/em><\/span>is one of the ‘mountains’ – perhaps 2000′ marked not with\u00a0snow but lines of light grey stone – they look like rivers, very elegant\u00a0shapes referred to as ‘stone runs’, and thought to be glacial in origin resulting from millenia of freeze-thaw extremes.\u00a0 There were large zones of these in many places, and they seem to be unique – Charles Darwin remarked on them, apparently; and they’re very difficult to traverse.\u00a0 They thrilled me.\u00a0 And then lower right<\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>there is a slice of one of the\u00a0 beaches I explored.<\/p>\n

It seems hard to say what the highlights were – but they include the wonderful people, locals, contractors and tourists\u00a0I met all over; the\u00a0dramatic landscapes; and the variety of bird life\u00a0including various\u00a0penguins of course.\u00a0\u00a0Or perhaps it was the 24 hours I spent totally alone at The Rookery, a little 4-bed self-catered\u00a0accomodation unit\/cabin on Saunders Is in the far NW of West Falklands, with only the sounds of the really strong winds and passing birds to enjoy.\u00a0 There was a small hand held 2-way radio (for emergency use only) and an fm radio too,\u00a0but the British forces station that picked up was total crap\u00a0 –\u00a0I heard one\u00a0 5-minute news session slipped in between largely British 60’s and 70’s music, and really, the silence\u00a0was far more interesting.<\/p>\n

A major part of the economy of the country has long been wool production, and though this is being outstripped by the development of major oil field production there, it is understandable that many of the local craft traditions there are based on wool<\/span><\/em><\/span>.\u00a0(Add in embroidery,\u00a0leather work and wood crafts including wood turning and burning)\u00a0 \u00a0Everywhere I went I asked about textile crafts, and met some interesting people associated with spinning\u00a0and weaving, felting, knitting and crochet.\u00a0\u00a0From several people I\u00a0heard about but was not able to actually connect with an American woman\u00a0in Stanley\u00a0who inherited a partly finished quilt from her grandmother’s attic in distant USA,\u00a0 She\u00a0gathered a few friends to help finish this vintage Bear’s Paw\u00a0quilt of which I saw a photo.\u00a0 The flow on effect from that project is\u00a0that some of these people have started to learn about how to make traditional geometric patchwork and other applique blocks.\u00a0 There’s a fabric shop there which I didn’t have the time to visit, but apparently people are able to get suitable materials with which to start, and I predict there will be more done there before too long.\u00a0 Just getting underway is a series of workshops taking place in the outer island settlements as two retired teachers, Myra, a kiwi, and Heather, an Aussie, travel around with the essentials and materials for one-day workshops on about a dozen crafts to teach isolated people their choice of whatever they want to learn from them.\u00a0 Part of the project’s goal is one of mental health –\u00a0to help\u00a0mitigate the\u00a0isolation and give people things to do in the long winter days and evenings ahead.\u00a0 Radio, phone and internet (slow) now cover most of the country, but as we all know, nothing beats personal contact and demonstrations by someone with knowhow.<\/p>\n

I had a great week and will write more about it in future posts.\u00a0For now, it’s time to\u00a0 assemble a web album of photos, the link to which I’ll post when that’s done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a visual feast\u00a0of \u00a0landscapes are\u00a0The Falkland Islands, from where I have just returned to Montevideo after a wonderful week. The changeability of the weather\u00a0during my week\u00a0there meant there was no going back for another shot when the weather improved,\u00a0so\u00a0I\u00a0have some less than perfect photos, some taken flying through rain, or trying to keep\u00a0myself and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-I3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2739,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}