We had a few hours to kill before our booked excursion to tour the battlefields of the 1982 war with Argentina so grabbed some breakfast and some photographs of the Blanco Bay area from our state room balcony.

The drive to Estancia (passing through the islands’ only traffic light) consisted mainly of some of the history and geology of the Falkland Islands, both of which were very interesting not least because our tour guide was delightfully acidic throughout. Some poor Americans on the trip didn’t seem to get his heavy sarcasm which provided for much entertainment.

Things we learnt about the war while at Estancia:

• The Argentinian invasion force was very good, easily overrunning the small British force present; this was partly because they’d been trained by the British.
• The Argentinians weren’t signatories to the Geneva Convention so they didn’t mark where their mines were planted. As a result large areas of the Falklands are still off limits. The mines are difficult to find because they’re well-made and were sold to the Argentinians by the Americans.
• Prior to the invasion the British had stopped automatically giving Falkland Islanders citzenship. Argentina was suffering from poor economic and social policies and saw this as a political opportunity to take what they considered theirs and to be treated as heroes by the people of the islands.
• The Argentinians treated the Falkland Islanders very well, respecting their property and privacy (at least, initially).
• Argentina did not think that Britain would respond on account of the distance and surprise element; it was therefore somewhat shocked to discover Britain had arranged all the logistics for the fleet departure inside three days.
• Argentina had tried a similar political trick in the 1970s by invading three Chilean islands. Pinochet, friends with Thatcher, decided to help out matters by mobilising this army on the Argentinian border. This forced Argentina to withdraw the highly trained troops who had taken the Falklands to where they might be needed, replacing them with less experienced soldiers from a hasty draft.
• The hospital insisted troops couldn’t be present when children were being born in order to make sure that all children born during the occupation were born under British flags.
• The schools were instructed they had to have Argentinian flags and sing the Argentinian national anthem each morning so they all closed.
• As British troops started to land and were taken care of by locals coded messages were passed as to locations and requirements using the local radio station’s regular phone-ins.

Leaving Estancia we parked up briefly near Mount Kent before our next proper stop for a bit of a discussion about the geology of the rocks in the area. We were also told that the military- and scientific-looking installation on the top of the mountain wasn’t on any maps and didn’t exist. We were shown a large rock with an arrow on it pointing at the installation and were told again very clearly that the thing it was pointing at was not there.

Argentina had two Chinook helicopters in operation during the Falklands War. One was captured by British forces but the other one – the one we were looking at – was destroyed. It had been moved to what the Argentinians thought was a sheltered location to protect it but the position was already under surveillance by special forces in the nearby hills. They duly called in its position and the helicopter was strafed by Harrier GR.3 XZ963. Our tour guide explained that the removal of the wreckage hadn’t been a priority in the aftermath of the war and that due to a lack of resources it had simply been left in situ. Over time it had become a tourist attraction and we were glad of it.

Just prior to arriving we had a momentary stop beside a minefield because there was a sign and our guide understood we’d want to take a photo of it. Some of us even got off the coach to do that because we realised that holding iPads up to windows bathed in highly reflecting sunlight would produce terrible pictures. Some of us.

A memorial to the Battle of Mount Harriet was present allowing us all to read a concise version of the events of the conflict. In each of the battlefields locations we had visited it was incredible to see just how exposed everything was. While there were hills and mountains around it never felt that you couldn’t be seen from some direction. The Falklands felt like a far easier place to defend than attack.

This concluded our battlefields tour of the Falkland Islands. As we drove back towards Stanley we heard more details about the British army’s march to retake the capital, including the assault on Tumbledown that we passed in sight of. We also heard a fabulous piece of information: during the final days of the war an embedded reporter famously reported that he could see white flags flying over Stanley. This wasn’t true because the Argentinians didn’t have white flags (they’re not standard issue) and there were no Argentinians in Stanley at the time. They had been there and they had enforced a strict curfew during the war between 22:00 and 07:00 each day. However, as the British approached the Argentinians retreated; this emboldened the locals to ignore the curfew and because there had been a spate of births they got to doing some washing and hanging the washing out on lines. Far from white flags what was most likely seen were sheets and nappies.

Falkland Islands Museum

We briefly popped into a souvenir place with the aim of getting something memorable from our trip to the Falklands but it seemed so did nearly everyone else from the Star Princess so we quickly left and headed to the nearby Falkland Islands Museum instead where we could see people milling about.

There were a smattering of military and maritime exhibits outside the museum with some lovely views across the harbour but it was inside that we wanted to visit. We entered and saw what looked like a ticket desk only for the woman behind to smile and gesture for us to step through and look around without paying. We thought that was odd but did so and came to wonder as we wandered around whether she had mistaken us as part of a tour group who were also exploring since we were still wearing our excursion stickers from the completed battlefields tour. We shrugged and agreed that the museum would do alright out of us anyway as we’d seen they had a shop and we had every intention of spending cash there as we’d been too impatient to wait in the souvenir shop. For the record we followed through on our intention, bought loads of little things, and even got some Falkland Islands change for our holiday money collection.

The museum was excellent and arguably one of the best we’ve visited, covering every aspect of Falkland Islands life from the people across different periods to the wildlife and geology and history, including the war, naturally. Highly recommended.

We carried on along Ross Road which runs along the harbour front in Stanley passing many buildings built in the style typical for the islands: white with coloured roofs, usually red or green. We also passed the mizzen mast of the SS Great Britain which had been damaged in a gale around Cape Horn in 1886.

Christ Church Cathedral

The next place we came upon was Christ Church Cathedral, famous in many pictures of the Falkland Islands because of the whalebone arch that decorates its entrance. The bones are from the jaws of two blue whales and the monument was put up in 1933 for the centenary of British rule and if you find yourself visiting Stanley on the Falkland Islands then there’s a very strong possibility that you’ll end up taking photos like this too. You won’t be able to help yourself.

Globe Tavern

This concluded our exploration of the interesting parts of Stanley on the Falkland Islands but did not conclude our time. We wanted to say we’d had a drink in a bar on the Falklands and just around the corner from the cathedral we spotted a gathering of like-minded people at the Globe Tavern. We initially thought everyone there would be from our cruise ship as it was the only one out in Blanco Bay and we could see nothing else in the harbour but this turned out not to be true.

Our tour guide had told us that many Argentinian people visited the islands (something we found surprising) and this was the case with a sizeable number of patrons in the bar clearly from the closest mainland. Indeed, the staff and possibly owner too were also all Argentinian. Despite this and despite the very pro-British sentiment displayed prominently there seemed no issues with anyone. Smiles and close proximity to a family of Argentinian tourists led to me being asked to take their photos and I happily obliged. Our tour of the battlefields and its reminder of reasonably recent warfare between our two nations contrasted nicely with the pleasant, joint effort of ordinary people to make a living and run businesses.

Refreshed, we walked the short distance down to the jetty to catch the tender boat back to the cruise ship.

There was still a little while before everyone else would be on board and we would depart the Falkland Islands so I went for a little wander around the top deck of the ship to take some photographs of the Falklands landscape from our bay location.

Sunbeams coming through the gathering clouds as the afternoon slipped into early evening and our departure from the Falklands grew ever closer provided for some nice photos too and some additional memories to group with the ones we already had from our day on the islands.