TRISTAN DU CUNHA ~ Inaccessible Island - UNESCO ~

... A wonderful postcard and amazing little "gem"💙 to add to my UNESCO collection... it came as a total surprise from one of the world's remotest Post Offices😮... this United Kingdom's remote Overseas Territory is sitting in solitude in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean... an uninhabited island that developed almost free from human interference, making it some of the least disturbed habitats left on earth... this isolation means they have also become home to unique arrays of plants and animals... Inaccessible island is perhaps best known for the Inaccessible Island rail, the world's smallest living flightless bird (shown on the postcard)... Thanks a million Paul! (✿ ♥‿♥)

"Top to bottom: Tristan Albatros, Sooty Albatros, Inaccessible rail." Photo: Aniket Sardana
Inaccessible Island is located in the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha on an extinct volcanic island which was active 6 million years ago. Its central area is a dissected plateau reaching 449m above sea level at the summit of Cairn Peak. It is fringed with sheer sea cliffs and only a few boulder beaches, which made generations of sailors wary of difficult landings and inhospitable terrain.

The island has one small beach, made up of pebbles, that provides a non-ideal but technically possible place to land a boat. There’s a small research cabin on one end of the beach, used every once in awhile by scientists. For most people, that’s where the trip to Inaccessible ends.

There are two explanations for the name "Inaccessible" island. One is that on maps the newly found island was referred to as "inaccessible" because the Dutch crew who landed were not able to get further inland than the beach, as they were blocked by 1000-foot high cliffs. The other claims that French captain d'Etchevery renamed the island in 1778 after not being able to land.

The islands' listing as a UNESCO WHS Site began in 1995. In 2004 the WHS boundary was extended to include Inaccessible Island and the waters surrounding the islands to 12 nautical miles, and the site name was changed to "Gough and Inaccessible Islands".

Stamp:

Vagrant Species - Salvin's Albatross  (Issued 06-10-2022)

Tristan da Cuhna ~ The Rockhopper Penguins ~

...New fantastic "far away" place to add to my collection... a really special postcard  for me ☝... great penguin postcard coming from the most remote inhabited island on Earth and that's including Antarctica and the North Pole... made popular by "Surf's Up" animated movie but unfortunately another specie classified as endangered because of the decline in numbers over the last three generations... Thanks a million Som also for the cute stamp used!! \_(♥‿♥)_/

Tristan da Cunha  is the name of a remote group of volcanic islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. The island is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.This includes Saint Helena and equatorial Ascension Island. It's located 2,816 km (1,750 mi) from the nearest continental land, South Africa.

The island is named after the Portuguese sailor, Tristao da Cunha , who was the first to sight these islands. Only around 275 people live on the island and the capital is Edinburgh Of The Seven Seas, named in honour of a visit to the islands by Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1867.

Rockhoppers are one of the world’s smallest penguins (only reaching 50 cm tall)  Similar to the Macaroni penguins, the Rockhopper penguins have decorative feather tufts on their heads -- theirs are yellow in color. Rockhopper Penguins are named after the way they hop from rock to rock when moving around their colonies. More than 99%  of the Northern Rockhopper Penguins breed on Tristan da Cunha.

Stamp

The 150th Anniversary of the Publication of Alices Adventures in Wonderland
(Issued 01-12-2015)