In Insular Patagonia

When it’s winter in the north, the days get shorter, and the weather gets rougher, it’s common to dream of island getaways. For many Northern Hemisphere residents, that might involve a hop to the Caribbean, but I prefer the southernmost region of the Americas. Two of South America’s biggest islands – Chiloé and Tierra del Fuego (pictured above) – arouse my own enthusiasm but, after spending a couple nights in Santiago recently, I chose to bypass the rest of the continent to spend a week in the Falkland Islands (whose tiny capital of Stanley appears in the photo below).

Air travel can be tiring, and the five-hour time difference with California didn’t help, but I arrived in the Islands by mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Staying with friends – I spent a year in the Islands three decades ago – I later enjoyed dinner with them at Waterfront Kitchen Café, where Chilean chef Alex Olmedo oversees a notably sophisticated menu. As an appetizer, the South Georgia reindeer paté deserves a story in itself, but I also chose the chimichurri-marinated local lamb rack for my main dish.

Over the next two days, I did a variety of town activities, including a visit to the professionally transformed Historic Dockyard Museum complex (pictured above), but Tuesday and Wednesday were special – I got to fly my favorite airline, the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS), to the offshore wildlife paradises of Sea Lion Island and Bleaker Island. I always enjoy the aerial views from their ten-seater Britten-Norman Islander aircraft, and I also enjoy the fact that there’s no oppressive airport security – no full body scans and feel free to take water on on-board - unless you count the fact that FIGAS weighs its passengers to be able to balance the load.

I made only a brief day visit to Sea Lion, a compact island with a modern lodge and easy access to wildlife sites that include three species of penguins and my personal favorite elephant seals. There are also orcas offshore, but none were around on this day. In the afternoon, I flew to nearby Bleaker, where wool ranchers Mike and Phyllis Rendell also encourage wildlife-oriented visitors to stay at their renovated Cobb’s Cottage and the newer Cassard House, which has four spacious bedrooms and full-board service. On a quick Land Rover tour around the island’s north end, we saw hundreds of Gentoo penguins and king cormorants, but also a solitary fur seal who had hauled himself ashore at a site where such sightings are infrequent (wool and wildlife appear to be compatible!).

At present, there’s only one flight weekly between Punta Arenas and the Islands – I’d have like to stay at least another few days - but, once you get back to the continent, you can tour Tierra del Fuego, Torres del Paine, and other thrillingly remote destinations. I’ve done that many times myself, but to me it’s also special to lodge on small offshore islands like Sea Lion and Bleaker, where you can explore the penguin-rich seashore and marine mammal colonies with just a handful of other guests around – and often you’re the only one of your kind.

Grapes in the Falklands? At Government House Gardens

From the mid-19th century, it was customary for every arriving Falklands visitor to call at Government House, the imposing building on Stanley’s Ross Road West, and sign the register. By the time I first arrived in the Islands, in early 1986, that custom had disappeared in the aftermath of 1982's South Atlantic war, as increased political and economic activity brought many more new people here, and the practice became impractical. Succeeding governors, also, were publicly less gregarious than their predecessor Rex Hunt, who genuinely enjoyed socializing with the Islands’ population.

One Government House feature that always fascinated me was the large conservatory (greenhouse) that stretches across two-third of the building’s northern exposure. It includes one of the world’s southernmost grapevines, a “Black Hamburg” variety that, I am told, produces abundant fruit. It is certainly one of the world’s southernmost grapevines; to the best of my knowledge, the only more southerly one sprawls through the conservatory restaurant at the Hotel José Nogueira in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas. Nobody, though, has ever been able to identify the variety to me.

Yesterday, though, I finally got a chance to visit Government House – or at least the conservatory - in the company of head gardener Jeremy Poncet. I had previously met Jeremy in Stanley Harbour when he was an infant aboard the Damien II, a research yacht that his father Jerome and mother Sally regularly sailed to South Georgia and Antarctica (Jeremy’s brother Dion was born in South Georgia, aboard the vessel).

This is a seafaring family, but Sally put me in contact land-based Jeremy, who oversees ornamental plants, fruit trees and vegetable gardens both outdoors and in greenhouses. As the photograph above shows, this season’s tomato plants are flourishing, though he wonders whether ultraviolet radiation through the Ozone Hole over southernmost South America might be causing mutations in the foliage.

In reality, the Government House gardens produce more fruit and vegetables than the governor and his staff can officially consume, with the surplus going to island schools and for charity purposes. That includes the fruit of the prodigiously productively grapevine, seen here from inside the conservatory in the early stages of its springtime growth. Jeremy has pruned it and other exotic plants judiciously.

While Government House and its gardens are not a tourist sight as such, Jeremy is willing to conduct tours for visitors with an interest in cultivated plants in this challenging environment (today, even as summer approaches, we saw a hailstorm and even a few snowflakes). He can’t handle cruise ship crowds, but is happy to accommodate individuals and very small groups, his other duties permitting.