Penguins

The trip to walk on the island with the penguins goes from Ushuaia down to Harberton by road (1.5 hours, with last hour on dirt) and then by zodiac out to the island. I’d forgotten the smell of penguin guano but it came back very quickly, although the island was by no means crowded as some of the Antarctica rookeries are. There can never be too many cute penguins. No chicks as it was too late in the season but lots of adults moulting and still plenty of action on the burrows from the Magellanic. The few gentoo still around are bigger birds with the same attitude factor seen in Antarctica. A great hour walking with them and then chance to spend an hour at Harberton. We skipped coffee and went and took a tour of the marine mammal facility. Very traditional methods – skeletons mounted on the walls in front of realistic sized painted animals.

A young graduate showed us around – taking the laboratory – very basic no power. The ‘bone house’ had to be seen to be believed. Again no power, big and small vats of unmentionable bits of dolphins, sealions, whales, that had been soaking in water for quite some time – the smell was memorable – one of the tour group last seen down on the beach – it was hard not to gag. The girl was picking bones out of a decomposed flipper of a seal.
We’ll skip the photos of this (but we did take some).

The tourist circuit is a small place and we banged into Ross and Frances et al who were camping at Harberton.

The tour didn’t leave till 2pm so we got back to town about 8.30pm. Another long day.