26th November, The Falkland Islands

2005

From the air the Falklands look bleak and beautiful in a lonely sort of way. Since starting the journey from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire I have been carried through various military spaces.

Ascension Island seems like it might have been invented just to provide the military with a pit-stop in the middle of the Ocean. It’s about as far from anything as it’s possible to be. Waiting for refuelling we had an hour looking out at the Volcanic landscape through the bars of our cage and then ascended once more, leaving the tiny rock to disappear into the endless Atlantic waves.

After 8 more hours we finally began to descend onto the flatter, colder east island of the Falklands.