Stanley
October 29th, 2005I’m in Stanley! We arrived last night and we’re staying in the comfortable Upland Goose Hotel, which is very conveniently adjacent to the BAS office…
Anyway, our flight did go from Brize on Thursday night, although it was delayed by two hours. The TriStar in use was a cargo-modified one: it had been fitted out with passenger seats but there were no overhead lockers and the cabin fittings were a bit basic. Nonetheless, the flight was smooth and comfortable, with plenty of legroom, and the RAF cabin crew in their green flying suits kept us fed and watered. We made our refuelling stop at Ascension, which was pleasantly warm in the morning sunshire and had an icecream and got our passports stamped. Then it was all back on the plane for the flight to Mount Pleasant Airfield. First impressions on leaving the plane were that the Falklands looks a lot like northern Scotland – rugged moorlands and few if any trees. It’s also quite cold (about 8 degrees) with a stiff breeze. An aged coach met us at the airport and bounced us over the 30 miles of mostly unmade road to Stanley. The landscape is very bleak, with isolated farms and scrawny sheep wandering over the raw grassland. This is the beginning of spring, but the landscape’s hardly showing signs of it.
Stanley seems to consist mostly of wooden and corrugated-metal houses arranged along the hillside overlooking the harbour. The Upland Goose is one of these, with the red-painted metal roof that seems to be the fashion here. Inside, you could be in a small seaside hotel anywhere in Britain – it’s very reminiscent of family holidays in North Devon. The rooms are comfortable and the food is excellent. There’s serious danger of putting on weight whilst we’re here! After dinner we went for a pint (just one for me, I was knackered!) in the Victory Bar, which is a popular local pub. Mark and I were surprised how many young local people there were in the bar – evidently they don’t have the problems with young people leaving that they have in other island communities. Today we’re planning to see what sights Stanley has to offer and I’ll let you know what we find!
October 30th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
The red rooves are probably painted with the same “red oxide” paint they use on the Forth rail bridge. It’s an anti-chorosian agent.
I’m packing for my own escape today. Pickfords arive tomorrow to start taking all my worldly north to Edinburgh. Not such an epic adventure as yours but probably involves more packing.
Just be thankful that your Tristar wasn’t a marvel of British engineering, otherwise the ash-tray would have fallen off in your hand.
October 30th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Hi Michael
Good luck with everything — I envy you your fascinating journey. You know the Upland Goose is famous — if I remember right, it was from the phone box outside the hotel that the journalist Max Hastings telephoned to the UK in June 1982 to say that the British had re-taken Port Stanley. All war correspondents were operating under MoD constraints, and could only transmit their reports (subject to censorship) via MoD satellite equipment (this was before people had either mobile or satellite phones). News of the rapid advance to Port Stanley had not reached home (partly I suspect because it was so rapid), and Max H with typical insouciance (he had been yomping with the troops) realised he could set off on his own, so he reached the Upland Goose, saw a telephone box, which enabled him to announce to the world that he was the first Brit to reach Stanley. He had a world scoop on his hands!
Your papa told me you had rung from this telephone, so you’re following in eminent footsteps! (Mind you, all this may be my fertile imagination… No doubt the locals will tell you whether it’s true!)
All the best — we’re thinking of you.
John