Carcass Island is a jewel of a place. It is about an hour flight in a small twin-engine 10-seater plane from Stanley. Upon arrival, there are three grass landing strips in a triangular shape to choose from. This is to allow planes to land in any wind conditions although the third grass strip will not be ready to land planes until this summer.
Upon arrival you will be met my Rob McGill, who along with his lovely wife, Lorraine, have lived on and operated Carcass Island for almost 40 years. They operate the Carcass Island Farmhouse; which is where you will stay on island.
The accommodations themselves are quite nice unless of course you are tall like me and get relegated to the child’s beds upstairs because it was a full house and don’t fit! But that’s OK because the atmosphere, great conversation and good food made up for it.
Carcass Island has loads to do. It is a wildlife photographers dream, especially for birds. In fact, some of the people at the farmhouse with me had come all the way from Europe to photograph the birds of the island-some for their second and third times! I got some great wildlife pictures but for me the highlight of the island is the great hiking and awesome views.
From the farmhouse you have some choices on where to hike. Carcass Island is a small island but it is still pretty big when going by foot and you will have to scale some 700m to get to the highest point on the island. So that is what I did.
I headed up to the highest point on the island back toward the air strip then walked the long rocky ridge that goes down the spine of the island. It runs a few miles back past the farmhouse settlement and gives great views along the way.
You can also see the neighboring islands but even better you get up close and personal with some of the local birds of prey, i.e. the striated caracara birds. They would literally hover a few feet above your head just checking you out. It was a little nerve-racking, as you don’t know what they’re going to do. Finally they generally just land near you and watch you!
Staying along the ridge you get even better views of the bay as you make your way toward the beautiful beaches at the other end of the bay. The beaches are gorgeous. If you didn’t know where you were you could mistake them for Caribbean beaches. That said, most Caribbean beaches I’ve been to don’t have Gentoo penguins on them!
Penguins and other birds hang out on the beach and swim around in their own little water land. They are so cute. Other geese and birds such as Cobb’s wren, dark faced ground tyrants and tussacbirds all hang out down in this area and make it a really cool place to be.
So Carcass Island isn’t the biggest island by far nor is it the easiest place to get to but there are flights from Stanley and for wildlife and photography, it is one of the best of the Falkland Islands.
If you go tell Rob I said hi, pictured above with HRH Prince Philip, and ask for the grown up beds downstairs! But definitely get out to Carcass Island, as it’s definitely a great place to spend a day or two in the Falkland Islands!
Carcass Island, Falkland Islands
November 3, 2013 by 19 Comments
I’ve never seen a blog about Falklands before so this is wonderful. I suspect you will write separate articles for each island you visited? I am particularly interested in Sea Lion Island. Did you go there as well?
I have written extensively about the Falklands, where I lived for a year-plus and have returned several times, on my own blog. I am hoping to return within a few weeks, but probably only for a week, unfortunately.
Lee, it is my dream to go to the Falklands. My father fought in the conflict. While I don’t know carcass specifically it looks very nice and I would love to do a tour sometime. Did you fly via Brize Norton in the UK?
Is it expensive in the Malvinas? Why don’t you reference the name Malvinas at all? You know there are many people who only call the islands Malvinas. I saw in your Facebook that you wouldn’t refer to then as anything but Falklands, why?
Paula, the residents of a place have the right to call it what they want, and it is abundantly clear that the residents of the Falkland Islands choose to call THEIR homeland the Falkland Islands. This Aussie thinks that they have more rigshark choose their name than you do
Malvinas is the Spanish name. Not the English name. Like London is “Londres” in Spanish.
Why didn’t you post pictures of inside the farm house?
Cool post Lee, looking forward to reading about the other islands.
That bed is a classic especially because of the crib and doll at the bottom of the bed. I don’t even think I could fit in it and I am not that tall.
Was this a sponsored trip? It would be helpful to readers to understand if you or a host tourism bureau paid for your trip, in whole or part, or otherwise provided assistance. If not, apologies, but your recent trips have all the hallmarks of subsidized trips (albeit without the disclaimers provided by other bloggers).
Looks like a great place…you make me want to visit everywhere you go!
I love waking up on Mondays to your posts. I have never and will never go to most of the places you write about but it makes me happy before staring work for the week so thank you as always! I love the penguin running picture; they’re adorable and I want 10 of them immediately in my house.
To those looking for blogs on the Falklands, try ALifeDownSouth, or Islandfarminginthefalklands or peterspenguinpost – all on blogspot, I think.
One of those authors visited Carcass last week.
Great picture of the plane and the grass runway would scare the heck out of me!
I’ve never heard of the place but it looks and sound fantastic. Beautiful beaches are unexpected. Wonder how the weather is – windy all the time???
I think you might be about to miss out on an opportunity. I notice that one of your few missing places left to visit is Ascension Island. Of the two places that you can fly to from the Falkland Islands, one is Chile (via Argentina once a month) and the other is RAF Brize Norton in the UK via Ascension Island.
Might be worth having a look at your outbound flight?
I spent on Ascension on my way back from the Falklands to the UK in 1987, and it was unforgettable. February is an ideal time to go, because that’s when the green sea turtles finish their migration from Brazil and come ashore to lay their eggs on the beach at night. The peak of Green Mountain is also fascinating, and the ruins of the early British outpost.
I meant to say, “I spent a week on Ascension.”
Thanks Rufus and yes I know all about the RAF flight but I am saving Ascension more or less to combine with the other South Atlantic islands St. Helena and Tristan de Cunha…if it doesn’t work out that way then ys I will do the RAF flight…plus St. Helena has an airport that opens next year so there’s a few options…TDC is the pain