Early settlers found routes that became the foundation of camp tracks. Materials for houses were dragged along these routes in carts and sleighs by horses and occassionally bullocks. Other loads were transported by 'cargeros', horses tied together in a line each with maletas for their cargo.
On both East and West Falkland there was a main artery with routes branching off to various settlements with camp houses along the way often following higher rocky ridges and areas but mostly the camp is peaty with many areas of ‘soft bog’. During winter when the peaty ground is saturated and waterlogged there were many ‘boggings’. There were notorious places like Bull Stream between Fox Bay and Chartres. Bridges might be just a few planks (easy to bog as you came off them) or quite substantial like the one over Chartres River on West Falkland, and on the east the Malo Bridge and the impressive Brodie Creek Bridge. As time moved on there came motorbikes and early vehicles were Landrovers with the occasional jeep. They frequently had to veer off the main track to find harder areas to avoid bogging in tracks of previous travelers and so the tracks were always wider with new scars to the sides as folk made their way along as well as they were able. Gates on the tracks between paddocks on main routes were mostly wooden, but sometimes off the main track they were ‘wire gates’. Maintenance of tracks was pretty basic given the distances and difficulty of doing repairs. Drivers used their own judgment to find a way through soft camp based on the time of year. If a vehicle did not turn up when expected it was assumed that it was bogged or broken down and someone else went to look for it. On West Falkland on the main North/ Fox Bay track, Mrs Mac at Goring House could be relied upon to say when/if a vehicle or rider had passed or called there. |
