Gypsy Cove

Gypsy Cove and Yorke Bay are a pair of small bays in the Falkland Islands. They are on East Falkland. Gypsy Cove is four miles from Stanley, and can be reached by local bus which runs every hour.

The bays face northwards into Port William, and have Canopus Hill behind them. Because of their strategic position, on a peninsula, not far from Stanley, during the 1982 occupation of the Falklands, the Argentines placed several fields of plastic landmines nearby, in order to prevent a British landing. The British, instead, marched on Stanley from the landward side, from the west, avoiding Gypsy Cove and Yorke Bay.

Although the landmines can be set off easily by humans, the bays are filled with penguins, who have taken advantage of their undisturbed location, and which are too small to set off the mines. While the beaches and minefields are fenced off, the bays are popular locations for tourist groups, who watch the birds from hides in unmined locations.

Stanley Airport is about a mile away, and most cruise ships pass the location on the way to Stanley Harbour.