A Gentoo penguin and chick
Although I am talking about a much smaller scale, it is also a sign of how confident we must feel economically to travel to a place that isn’t the easiest to get to. But 2012 was the 30th anniversary of the conflict back in 1983 when a British force re-took the islands after the invasion. So the figures might be inflated due to that.
It isn’t only memories of past events that attract us to visit the islands. The fact that it visited by so few in comparison with Tenerife, for example, makes it an appealing choice for those who want something different and unusual to talk about at dinner parties and during across-the-fence gossip. It is the wildlife that is the main attraction and during their summer. (our winter.) The bird population rises – there are over 750,000 penguins and only 3,200 people – and there are also opportunities for whale and dolphin watching offshore and seeing seal elephants and sea lions onshore. Even the local newspaper is called the Penguin News.
But one attraction of the Falklands that isn’t talked about a lot is how you get there. You can fly on LAN Airways via Chile and arrange a twin centre holiday but how much better it would be if you said you flew out of RAF Brize Norton on an air force charter flight!
That’s got to be one-upmanship in who had the best holiday stakes.
Image © The Falkland Islands Tourist Board
