Joe's Blog: There's a penguin on the telly!!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

There's a penguin on the telly!!

Can’t help but think of that line from Monty Python when I think of penguins. Well we went to see some at Bluff Cove, Falkland Islands. This was a great tour. Sixteen of us got into a small bus for about a 20 minute ride outside of Stanley. Then you transfer into 4x4’s (4 into each) for a very bumpy 20 minute cross country trek to the cove. Words cannot describe the experience of going over this terrain in a 4x4. When I get home I will a video of part of the ride that will show you how rough it was. We caught bounced around pretty good inside the cab.

You are driven to the cove and right to the penguins. There are wooden stakes in the ground which you are asked not to cross so as not to make the penguins nervous. Many volunteers are on site to make sure that you keep your distance. Here are some pics but I cannot send you the aroma of a couple of thousand penguins. There is penguin poop all over the place!! The pic of the penguins with the yellow on their heads are King Penguins.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I remember reading about British fighter pilots playing around with the penguins during the Falklands war. Apparently, the pilots would find a place with a couple thousand penguins standing around, and go zooming by and watch the penguins follow their progress from left to right. Then the pilots would do a quick turn and roar back in the other direction, watching all the penguin heads following their progress from right to left. The pilots would then do a quick loop and blast back directly at the place where the penguins were standing - and kill themselves laughing as they watched 1000 penguins craning their necks, then falling over on their backs as the jet thundered by overhead.; 2:32 pm