Stanley Town Walkabout

Dawnbreaker
Lars Alfredson
Tue 22 Nov 2011 14:55

21112011 Stanley Town Walkabout

 

All fed and watered we head for the Standard Chartered Bank, the only one in town and located in a modern looking building on the waterside.

After some discussion cash is obtained, Lars subs me as they need a passport for ID which I haven’t brought whilst Thomas, having some difficulty with his card is showing them how it’s done!

 

 

From here we proceed to explore westward. The town is a strip about four streets wide and about five miles long stretching along the waterfront.

On our way we pass government house and call into Cable & Wireless my old employer.

 

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                            Government House                                                                Cable and Wireless

 

Just offshore is one of the many wrecks that litter the coastline. She’s the “Jelhum” She was originally launched in Liverpool in 1849,

suffered damage whilst rounding Cape Horn carrying a cargo of guano and limped into Stanley. Now hard aground She was used for storage (Like many of the others) and only recently lost its bow in a storm

 

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                                  The Jelhum 

 

 

On the way we pass the 1982 war memorial which honours the British forces that died in the war.

 

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                                   War memorial                                                                               Many were killed

 

At the far end is the Museum featuring a variety of themes many nautical but including a hut from Antarctica, a section on local history and another on the Argentine invasion of 1982.

 

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                                  The Museum

 

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                                                                                            Footpowered dental drill   

 

Having had our dose of culture its lunch time and we head to the nearby pub only find it closed so we divert into the store adjacent where to my joy

and the disgust of others I find “Marmite”, Peter finds his Peanut butter and Thomas his Lemon Curd.

 

We set of back to town and call into the Malvinas Hotel for lunch. They have an excellent menu and we settle for a local wild goose pate,

fish chips and mushy peas and gammon, egg and chips. All wonderfully presented and helped on their way with a “Bloody Mary”

 

Fully restored we set off to another wreck, the “Lady Elizabeth at the other end of Stanley Harbour a good four mile hike

We stop in the Chandlery and Supermarket where I purchase a Balaclava and manage to solicit a lift for Thomas and me from a Canadian gentleman we had met earlier, the other preferring to walk.

 

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The wreck known locally as the “Lady Liz” is an iron clad which arrived in Stanley in 1913 having suffered irreparable damage on the rocks in Berkeley Sound.

She was used as a floating warehouse before breaking its moorings and drifting to this location.

 

We pop down to visit and old friends on a yacht quite famous for its Antarctic exploits the “Pelagic” and check mooring as we have to move in the morning

to make way for the visiting cruise ship “jolly boats” ferrying their 400 passengers to shore.

 

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Luckily he is heading to town and gives us a lift back. Pausing only for a couple of  tins at the Globe we head via the Tourist centre

to Skype and settle down on the Yacht for the evening, little legs suitably worn out.

 

Bob the Blog.