115. The Rock

Gibraltar

Boarder control

Back to Gibraltar today, resplendent with passports. I thought it likely that today we would be waved through, without checking just to urk us. Again, the Spanish officers gave us the bored look we expected and we passed through the gates. Satisfyingly, the UK Bobby took great care, going through our six UK passports in great detail and eyeballing each one of us in turn. Satisfyingly, for my Mother, he only glanced at her UK passport.

Immediately driving across the airport was a thrill. Mother reminded us of some of Uncle Dudley's stories from being stationed at Gibraltar, with the Royal Navy during the war and talking of a bomber lying in the shallows, completely submerged. He loved his Gibraltar station before being sent on the Northern Conveys.

Trinity Point

WW1 defensive guns

Peppered with tunnels

East side is sheer

We started in the main town which is mostly high rise apartments, completely blocking the view. DIdn't give me the feeling that I would like to live there. Without reference to the GPS we made our way round the island, the road sometimes turning into little lanes that we expected to turn into dead ends then it would open up again round a tight right angle corner then dive into a rough tiny tunnel, blasted through the rock. As it is winter, traffic was sparse in Gibraltar as I had expected to struggle to get around. Actually, it was a breeze and we drove right round and later, almost to the top. I imagine it completely locks up during holiday season.

The rock itself is a labyrinth to tunnels, for defence and to withstand a siege. Additional tunnelling was added during WW2 to successfully blockade the Med.

Kept rotating away

2m from the cable car arrival

After doing a lap the cable car and famous monkeys beckoned though iris was convinced that we would loose Roman and not be able to distinguish him. Fyfe suggested that his relative lack of climbing would be the best way of identifying him.

We purchased the full ticket for the cable car not realising that everything was so spread out at the top and as we only had two hours available before everything shut we wasted forty pounds. The smug lady at the ticket office must get a laugh out of that. Our biggest concern was whether we would see the monkeys. 

...and he's gone

Turns out you couldn't miss them.

Spectacular views from the gondola

They are not always easy to photograph as they can move very quickly and tend to turn away from onlookers. The monkeys were pretty much everywhere and kept us well entertained meaning that we didn't have a hope of seeing the paid for attractions.

The views are absolutely outstanding, both across Spain and over the Straights to Morocco. It felt, while at the top, very much like being in Hong Kong.

From the top

The family walked down to be collected by car at the half way point while Roman, my Mum and I took the Gondola down. It was absolutely packed as they cancelled the staff gondola as the wind had got up. We drove back up and with some difficulty as the reserve was closed, met the family at the mid station.

All in all, a day to be remembered.